[starbug]

Its prob a stupid question but how do you make a capital ship's subsystem invulernable? Ie i've got a mission where a orion rams a hecate, now as the orion is approaching the hecate, the hecate is firing beams and is trying to move out of the way. Now the problem comes from the fact 7 out 10 times the Orion's engines subsystems are taken out and cannot ram the hecate. Now the orion has to ram in order for other events to take place so how do i do this without making the whole ship invulernable?

[General Battuta]

Guardian the subsystem at a threshold (you want it to be high, like 80-90, on a capship), using a SEXP which I believe is under Ship Status. Also, if you're using War in Heaven (which I recall you are), use the set-armor-type SEXP to give the engines Heavy Armor 5 to make the guardian less obvious.

[Galemp]

I dunno the answer to your question, but I have another solution for you. Instead of letting the Hecate beam-free-all, lock the offending turrets and use fire-beam SEXPs on a repeat timer to target specific subsystems of the Orion, like Sensors or Navigation. That way no stray beams will hit the Engines.

Alternately you can have a repair-subsystem SEXP that repeats to keep the engines above a certain threshold.

[starbug]

Cool, i'll give that a try. I maybe imagining it but didn't there used to be a invulernable subsystem sexp in older versions of fred? Also what do the various armor numbers mean ie heavy armor 5, 50 etc

[General Battuta]

Cool, i'll give that a try. I maybe imagining it but didn't there used to be a invulernable subsystem sexp in older versions of fred? Also what do the various armor numbers mean ie heavy armor 5, 50 etc

You want guardian, not invulnerable.

The numbers are the percent damage that will be taken, i.e. Armor 20 reduces the damage by 80%, to 20%.

[karajorma]

Cool, i'll give that a try. I maybe imagining it but didn't there used to be a invulernable subsystem sexp in older versions of fred? Also what do the various armor numbers mean ie heavy armor 5, 50 etc

Guardian allows a ship to take a certain amount of damage before becoming invulnerable.

[Mobius]

Another thing you may wish to do (but, bear in mind, may end up confusing) is randomization. It can be done by replacing the threshold value with this (you can find rand in arithmetics).

rand
  80 (min value)
  95 (max value)

FreeSpace will pick a random number between the two as a limit below which the integrity of that subsystem will not fall. I normally use values between 5 and 15 for turrets, and 20-50 for major subsystems (mostly engines).

[General Battuta]

Another thing you may wish to do (but, bear in mind, may end up confusing) is randomization. It can be done by replacing the threshold value with this (you can find rand in arithmetics).

rand
  80 (min value)
  95 (max value)

FreeSpace will pick a random number between the two as a limit below which the integrity of that subsystem will not fall. I normally use values between 5 and 15 for turrets, and 20-50 for major subsystems (mostly engines).

For most escort missions with any sort of timing-sensitive element, or that require ships to stay in formation, you should guardian the engines at something like 80-90%, because engine damage will slow capships down in proportion to the amount taken.

[Mobius]

Sure, but only if you want that to happen.

More in general, using random values helps adding much needed variety in missions where a lot of ships are guardianed. Imagine all characters in a mission flying their spacecraft with 5% hull integrity...

[Shivan Hunter]

because engine damage will slow capships down in proportion to the amount taken.

wait wat

i was not informed

[General Battuta]

Sure, but only if you want that to happen.

More in general, using random values helps adding much needed variety in missions where a lot of ships are guardianed. Imagine all characters in a mission flying their spacecraft with 5% hull integrity...

Yes, but you want the random values to be high. It's hell on players if a six minute waypoint path turns into a forty-minute one because some ship gets its engines knocked down to 10%.

[The E]

Or if the ships in your convoy start pushing the ships in front of them.

[Droid803]

I though the speed scaling only starts when the engines drop below like 50%.
They certainly don't drop to 50% speed at 50% engines.

[General Battuta]

You might be right.

BTW, if you've got a guardianed subsystem, it's a good idea to give it armor so it's less likely the player will actually hit the guardian threshold. Not foolproof, but a good touch.