[badpenguin]

is it possible to change an existing ship to use a different weapon in place of the beam turrets?
i want it to fire missiles instead of beams

[Nyctaeus]

Change SBanks to PBanks, after that change missile to beam. All in ships.tbl. Nothing easier

[0rph3u5]

it can be done via SEXP as well I think (if you are hesitant about changing the tbl-files) ...

How it's done? With this SEXP

[badpenguin]

Change SBanks to PBanks, after that change missile to beam. All in ships.tbl. Nothing easier

I need viceversa

As example i'm using GTT Argo because its simple:

$Subsystem:                     turret01,               5, 20.0
   $Default PBanks:        ( "Terran Turret" )
$Subsystem:                     turret02,               5, 20.0
   $Default PBanks:        ( "Terran Turret" )

i want to change the stupid turret01 to something with rapid fire
and turret02 to a missile launcher that send navy-2-navy missiles like the one carried by heavy bomber

[Shivan Hunter]

Actually, reverse that. [EDIT] : whoops. This was written in reply to Betrayal's post.

(I'll be writing this with the assumption you're a beginner, so that this post will be helpful to complete noobs as well. It also saves me the trouble of trying to guess how much you've already found out. )

You'll need to find the entry in ships.tbl that has the beams, and find which turrets are using the beam turrets. Example:

Code: [Select]

$Subsystem: Turret07, 3.0, 1.0
 +Default Pbanks: ( "BVas" )
This is all part of the $Subsystem: entry in the ship's ships.tbl entry. It has this format:

Code: [Select]

$Subsystem: <subsystem name>, <percentage of ship's hull>, <turning speed (if it's a turret)>
 +Default Pbanks: ( "<weapon name>" )
The subsystem name ties in to the model file (the .pof file). It shouldn't be renamed if you're modifying a turret. The percentage of ship's hp is pretty self-explanatory, and the turning speed is the time in seconds it would take for the turret to spin 360 degrees.

The weapon name is a reference to the weapons.tbl entry. Big-ship missiles kind of suck and are underused in FS- You may want to give it a Cyclops or Piranha instead of a Fusion Mortar or FighterKiller.

-------------------

Well, that's what the info in ships.tbl does. You need to change it. To do this, we'll use an SCP feature made of awesomesauce called modular tables. Basically, <name>-shp.tbm adds on to the ships.tbl, allowing you to put in new ships without overwriting anything.

Another feature tbms have to offer is +nocreate. Basically, you use it to override certain fields in an existing ship. You'd make something like

Code: [Select]

#Ship Classes

$Name: GTC Fenris
+nocreate
$Hitpoints: 300000

#End
If you wanted to make a nigh-indestructible Fenris.

You'd do pretty much the same thing- use your ship name, "+nocreate", then the $subsystem entries containing the beams you want changed.

Remember to change $Default PBanks: to $Default SBanks: to mount a secondary weapon.

[EDIT] You know what IMO we need? tabling tutorials. We have a few good ones for FRED, some really outdated ones for modelling but modelling tutorials are all over the place- A good, brief set of tutorials for tbl entries would be an excellent primer.

[badpenguin]

[EDIT] You know what IMO we need? tabling tutorials. We have a few good ones for FRED, some really outdated ones for modelling but modelling tutorials are all over the place- A good, brief set of tutorials for tbl entries would be an excellent primer.

Yes i already understood some stuff from wiki since i tried to add to a test mod ships and weapons from various campaigns. I use the override file: test1-shp.tbm and test1-wep.tbm

For the rest i'm completly noob

[badpenguin]

I'm satisfied with the quick faster turret, just changed a standard "Terran Turret" to an anti-aircraft one
using just:

Code: [Select]

$Fire Wait: 0.30
$Flags: ("Esuck" "small only" "same turret cooldown")

the 2nd weapon i set it to Cyclops and later tested with Harpoon but its not firing at all
it keep firing an old laser as a normal terran turret
this is the complete tbm:

Code: [Select]

#Ship Classes

$Name: @GTT Argo
+nocreate
$Short name:            HACKEDARGO
+Tech Description:
XSTR("HACKED Argo ", -1)
$end_multi_text
$Default PBanks:        ()
$Default SBanks:        ( "Harpoon" )
$SBank Capacity:        ( 40 )
$Flags:                 ( "freighter" "ship copy" "generate icon" )
$Subsystem:                     turret01,               5, 1.0
$Default PBanks:        ( "BSG Turret" )
$Subsystem:                     turret02,               5, 1.0
$Default SBanks:        ( "Harpoon" )

#end


[General Battuta]

One thing you might want to do to improve warship turret fire rate is start using Fury's AI profiles.

Under the retail AI profiles, there's something called a random turret refire delay, which adds a small wait time between every shot from a turret. So your tabled firewait won't actually be the rate at which the turret fires.

[Getter Robo G]

Actually what we really should have is:

100% clean but working example table templates for modders (of all skill levels) that have any and all extraneous crap removed.

One made for each ship or installation class in FS2, like fighter, bomber, cruiser, awacs, ect...

For any values needed for defualt, just use the first of each type (like Uly for fighters, ect) All associated values, icons sounds will be of that defualt type. very not complicated...

That way all you have to do in reality is change the pof names and class names for your modded ship and they will be guaranteed to work with no errors first time and would be fully compatible with any scp or mod...

Do you know that right when I made my mod folder the retail tables contained 30 ERRORS?

"ballistic tag unneeded-obsolete"  So... i removed the ballistic flag from all teh fighters.

That got rid of 15 errors, but some other thing I haven't figured out is related to that that FS2 fixes itself apparently, but every time I start the mod (before I even changed anything) still says "this mod has 15 errors"..

You know what, I don't care it wasn't my fault... Time to just freaking MOD...

[General Battuta]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[MatthTheGeek]

Sounds like he just fails at tabling.

[General Battuta]

The ballistic flag isn't even in the retail tables, so yeah, clearly he's doing something wrong.

[The E]

Indeed. Either he's using some really old build that fails at parsing retail, or something else is wrong.

Because retail is pretty much the only thing that is guaranteed (as in, 100%, absolutely guaranteed) to load without errors.

[badpenguin]

  any idea why the second turret keep firing dummy laser instead of missiles?

[MatthTheGeek]

Code: [Select]

+nocreate
$Subsystem:                     turret02,               5, 1.0
$Default SBanks:        ( "Harpoon" )I think the problem here is that it doesn't remove the blob laser the turret previously had, but simply adds the new missile weapon along with the blob, because $Default SBanks doesn't override $Default PBanks. But I may be mistaken on that, I'm still not very confident with tbms and +nocreate priorities.

[badpenguin]

Code: [Select]

+nocreate
$Subsystem:                     turret02,               5, 1.0
$Default SBanks:        ( "Harpoon" )I think the problem here is that it doesn't remove the blob laser the turret previously had, but simply adds the new missile weapon along with the blob, because $Default SBanks doesn't override $Default PBanks. But I may be mistaken on that, I'm still not very confident with tbms and +nocreate priorities.

Yes i got away from "+nocreate" and just created a new ship with cut-and-copy method
and it worked.

[Getter Robo G]

I re-extracted the root tables for later insertion. I did this right when I reinstalled fs2 and scp 5 months ago, but I did not start re-creating my mods until this weekend.

Here's what I assume happened since I did not, and never have written a complete table for every ship in the game and saved it as a tbl file (since complete tables don't pop out of nowhere). I also do not alter existing ships values unless I changed the POF it referenced, and hadn't even touched a new model yet.

I must have used one of the SCP mods by mistake instead of the root Vp.

Cause the tag was there already and I removed it from all the ships that had it, then saved it and only THEN started my own initial TEST mod.

So clearly it wasn't a tabling Error (as my "tabling" actually solved half the the "problems"), it was an EXTRACTION error.

IE I fail at extracting, not tabling.

just to keep the record straight.

If there's anything I actually and utterly fail at it would be modeling/texturing,

Oh and a close third by FREDDING! hahahah

"Why did all these 300+ asteroids I just spent 15 hours hand placing turn into enemy veritechs?
OH **** Computer LOCK UP - FPS 2-3"

Ah yes, (wipes tear from eye) memories...