[x3110]

All right,
Here are my questions compiled in a single thread.
If you  think a question is dumb even then please answer that too.

1.What do you think is more appropriate,I make a nebula(whisp) background in fred(it contains a lot of nebulae) or just create a skybox with pictures of nebula as it's walls(Performance-wise)(Please note we are talking of the backgroun nebulae).

2.How do LOD's work,I read somewhere that all LOD's are loaded in Memory at once sowhy make 5 LOD's,they will just take up memory(Please correct me if i am wrong).

3.How does "evade ship" works,if the ships you are telling an AI to evade then what is the min distance AI Maintains?And can't it be used with Large models to Avoid collision Problems(Just order AI to Protect the large Models but place A Nav Buoy At the center of the model with orders to AI to evade the ship at center)?

4.How does Subspace Drive work(Large Accelerate fighters Engage at nearly half their speed?)Is it Mass dependent/Table dependent/Length Dependent or something else?

5.is there any way of altering how a heat seeker works(Instead of goin after players target Going after the most likely target or maybe only go after Bombs?

6.How do i workout a multiple terture replacement in FRED?(I thing you can only change one Texture)(Please don't suggest a separate Model)?

7.If A model is Set to Nocollide flag then will it's debris will be uncollideable as well;if yes is there some way to alter that?

Answer please.

[The E]

1.What do you think is more appropriate,I make a nebula(whisp) background in fred(it contains a lot of nebulae) or just create a skybox with pictures of nebula as it's walls(Performance-wise)(Please note we are talking of the backgroun nebulae).

I haven't done the math on this, but I'm pretty sure that a single skybox is almost always more efficient than a combination of whisp nebulae. The big "stellar nursery" skybox used in BP:AoA DC for example would have been impossible to do using whisps. On the other hand, sometimes a whispy background is all you need.

2.How do LOD's work,I read somewhere that all LOD's are loaded in Memory at once sowhy make 5 LOD's,they will just take up memory(Please correct me if i am wrong).

LODs are lower-poly copies of a base mesh stored in the model file. They are used whenever the model is a given distance away from the curent viewpoint in order to speed up rendering, so despite the (really minuscule) memory overhead, they are an important factor for performance. In most cases, you won't need all 5 levels, but 3 levels should be included in most models.

4.How does Subspace Drive work(Large Accelerate fighters Engage at nearly half their speed?)Is it Mass dependent/Table dependent/Length Dependent or something else?

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ships.tbl#.24Warpout_Speed:

6.How do i workout a multiple terture replacement in FRED?(I thing you can only change one Texture)(Please don't suggest a separate Model)?

FRED's texture editor allows the replacement of all textures the model has. Obviously, you can't give a model that has only one texture slot two different textures; that would take an alteration of the model itself.

7.If A model is Set to Nocollide flag then will it's debris will be uncollideable as well;if yes is there some way to alter that?

Debris apparently does not inherit the no_collide flag (or any flag at all) from its parent object.

[Aardwolf]

A little more info on this one:

1.What do you think is more appropriate,I make a nebula(whisp) background in fred(it contains a lot of nebulae) or just create a skybox with pictures of nebula as it's walls(Performance-wise)(Please note we are talking of the backgroun nebulae).

The classic FS2-style 'whisp' nebulae are slower for a couple of reasons. First, it's got multiple textures; swapping textures takes time. Second, and more significantly, is fill rate: the graphics card has to draw all of those pixels (with additive or alpha blending) for each and every nebula. If there's a lot of overlapping nebulae, the same region will be drawn in many times in a single frame. If you've ever played Blue Planet, the the mission "Forced Entry" (aka the Knossos mission, aka the really hard one) has a TON of overlapping nebulae, so much that it can cause a horrible slowdown even on my fairly good (new) graphics card.

[x3110]

So,if size isn't a limit then we should pack seperate skyboxes for seperate missions with a lot of nebulae?(to enhance performance?).
Also,i still haven't got any answers to Q.5 & Q.3,I am particularly interrested in No.3,Can anyone answer it?

Also,for Q.4,Warpout speed is introduced in 3.6.10 but before that how is warpout speed controlled in Retail?

[Aardwolf]

3. I don't think it has a "minimum distance" of any sort. But I don't know the details. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work very well for keeping ships from colliding, though.

5. There's a flag that makes them target any hostile, instead of preferring the targeted hostile. No idea about making them prefer bombs, though.