[0rph3u5]

It's me again...

I just need another SEXP for "The Lost Generation" for my sanity's sake - Here is what I'm looking for:

I need a mean to control the Support Ship(s) by FREDed events. Nothing fancy just a way to get "Support N" to jump out when the mission designer (aka myself) sees fit.

So can it be done at all?

Currently working on a workaround with arguments and restricted support ship count - I like to think that would work but I don't know yet

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Have you tried setting a ship as a support ship using the sexp then just ordering it to depart?  No idea if that will work but it might. 

[0rph3u5]

How do I set a ship support ship?
 There is a SEXP set-support-ship but that does something else entriely (setting support ship arrival method, mothership and restricts the number of support ship avalible)  

and yeah, I could slip in a support ship into every rearm window of the mission and order it to depart afterwards; that's kind of my last resort - However that ship would still appear no matter if rearming was needed... also leaves me a plot-hole I'd have to fix (same as what the current work around is doing)

All I want is for the moment the rearm window (as establsihed by good-rearm-time) closes that the currently present support ship Support N (called through the communication menu) will finish it's last rearming cycle and jump out, so that once the next rearm window opens and the player has moved on the support ship doesn't have to come from 6000 meters away and take the entire rearm window to get to the player
(for the mission concept it is very important that the player wing doesn't stay too much time in one place)

EDIT: It wouldn't just work for me ... I can think of some scenarios where the mission design would call for a forced return of the support ship the player has called in earlier: retreats, redeploymentss to accomidate other wings, campaigns with limited ressources....

[Aardwolf]

Tangentially-related question: is there any way to get wingmen to call for rearm more sensibly? Like, instead of waiting until right after I call for rearm? Or, instead of waiting 5 minutes after having all of their subsystems blown out?

[General Battuta]

Tangentially-related question: is there any way to get wingmen to call for rearm more sensibly? Like, instead of waiting until right after I call for rearm? Or, instead of waiting 5 minutes after having all of their subsystems blown out?
[/quote

Aside from the good-support-time SEXP? (or good-rearm-time, I forget what it's called)

[karajorma]

when-argument
-Support Ship 1 (or whatever the default name for the support ship is)
-trigger
-ai-goal
--<argument>
--ai-warpout
--200

Bit sleepy still but that should be in the right ballpark.

[Aardwolf]

Tangentially-related question: is there any way to get wingmen to call for rearm more sensibly? Like, instead of waiting until right after I call for rearm? Or, instead of waiting 5 minutes after having all of their subsystems blown out?

Aside from the good-support-time SEXP? (or good-rearm-time, I forget what it's called)

Er, yeah, but what about ships that unexpectedly get disabled/disarmed? They're completely useless in combat, and AFAIK you can't order a support ship to repair them. I mean, I suppose you could use the aforementioned SEXP in an every-time-argument setup, but that seems kind of stupid.

[General Battuta]

Tangentially-related question: is there any way to get wingmen to call for rearm more sensibly? Like, instead of waiting until right after I call for rearm? Or, instead of waiting 5 minutes after having all of their subsystems blown out?

Aside from the good-support-time SEXP? (or good-rearm-time, I forget what it's called)

Er, yeah, but what about ships that unexpectedly get disabled/disarmed? They're completely useless in combat, and AFAIK you can't order a support ship to repair them. I mean, I suppose you could use the aforementioned SEXP in an every-time-argument setup, but that seems kind of stupid.

Er, I believe they'll call for repair on their own.

[Aardwolf]

Maybe it was just a one time thing, but I was playing that FSPort mission with the 3 shield prototype freighters, and one of the Valkyries in my wing got disabled during the first or second wave of Shivans. I cycled through my wingmen as I was getting toward the end of the mission, and saw this idiot hanging around maybe 17 km from the convoy.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

They can't call for repair if they don't have comm subsystem I believe so that may be what happened. 

[karajorma]

What might be nice is to improve the support ship AI so that if it is present and ship is disabled with no comms it goes in anyway. That way you still have to call the support ship in for your buddy but if one is present already and isn't doing anything, it will repair you.

[Mongoose]

They can't call for repair if they don't have comm subsystem I believe so that may be what happened. 

What I've always found amusing is that you can somehow call for a support ship if your comm subsystem is disabled, yet your wingmen can't.  I know it's purely for gameplay reasons, but it doesn't make much sense.

[jr2]

What might be nice is to improve the support ship AI so that if it is present and ship is disabled with no comms it goes in anyway. That way you still have to call the support ship in for your buddy but if one is present already and isn't doing anything, it will repair you.

They can't call for repair if they don't have comm subsystem I believe so that may be what happened. 

What I've always found amusing is that you can somehow call for a support ship if your comm subsystem is disabled, yet your wingmen can't.  I know it's purely for gameplay reasons, but it doesn't make much sense.

Eh... I don't recall being able to do that...

[General Battuta]

Mongoose is right.

Basically, you roll down the cockpit window and wave vigorously.

[0rph3u5]

when-argument
-Support Ship 1 (or whatever the default name for the support ship is)
-trigger
-ai-goal
--<argument>
--ai-warpout
--200

Bit sleepy still but that should be in the right ballpark.

that's like my current work-around and it does the job (I not quite sure if it is bug free BTW) but there has to be a simpler solution - esspecially since there can be an infinte number of support ships being called in unless you restrict that with set-support-ship (despite the fact you can still have one at a time)

[Mongoose]

Mongoose is right.

Basically, you roll down the cockpit window and wave vigorously.

I feel like hazard flashers and those little orange reflective triangles are involved too.

[jr2]

Technobabble explanation: (waves hand to clear your mind for Force suggestion)

When the comm subsystem goes down, the fighter has an emergency auto-beacon in a redundant subsystem that activates.. it is powerful enough to call in support ships that are in-system at that time.   ... although that doesn't explain you being able to call in the support ship with your system down.

Hmm... we should make it so that if any allied ship has its comm system destroyed, a support ship is called in by default - the other members of his team notice his auto-beacon and call it in for him. 

[General Battuta]

Any changes to support ship behavior need to be done as an optional AI profiles flag.

[karajorma]

This one is probably minor enough that it might not need one. How often does comms get destroyed in a way which doesn't also take out the ship?

For things like this I keep thinking we need to have a version level bugfix list. Minor things like this could be added that way instead of via AI Profile flags which simply litter the tables and make it confusing to find the actual feature you're interested in amongst all the minor bug fixs.

So you'd simply have AI Profile flagged as "All minor 3.6.12 bug fixes" and all the little things like this would be fixed.

[chief1983]

Not a bad idea.  Would just need some way to keep track of what was fixed by that flag that a modder can easily find.