[Red_Raven]

ok, i'm not so new that i'm asking about unlocking the beam weapons, but i'm sure this is an easy problem in your books.

i'm working on a campain for myself (maybe i'll release it, if it's any good when done), and the first few missions call for some deep space proximity mines. easy enough to rig; set special explosion, rig sexp for distance, or even kamikaze works sometimes. anyways, the first mission only had seven of the things. that's seven detonation sexp's, and then four more for when they come in (one alone, then in pairs).

the problem comes from the second mission. you're smack dab in the middle of this minefield, and you've got a scientific convoy to protect. well, i would have just sucked it up and done it all by hand, but FRED2 complained that it ran out of storage space after i think it was ten mines. told me to check the variables, and i did. wowsers, that was a lot of variables.

normally, i would have just set the objects to arrive in waves, from what i can tell, you can only do that to wings. well, you can't assign cargo units to wings. and creating a dummy object (small frieghter) to come in (invisible to sensors) 2000m away from anything, drop it and jump out, but everyone sees it and starts attacking it.

anyways, i've gotten nowhere on this. is there anyway to dynamically create these mines without overloading anything? or is it just not going to happen, and i should scrap the project? please let me know. and don't hurt me.

[vadar_1]

ill give it a shot... first of all set your mines to fighters in the table, and make them "play dead". Have them arrive when you need them (no special warp), and set them to protect-ship when you dont want anyone attacking them. As for the detonation part you still have to use SEXPs for that, but it cant be that hard, just give the mine a high damage explosion, and create a sexp something like (i dont have fred open)

Code: [Select]


when
  -distance
       < All friendly ships >
       some distance
  - Self destruct
       mine 1


I cant think of a faster way

[Roy fokker]

Originally posted by Red_Raven
ok, i'm not so new that i'm asking about unlocking the beam weapons, but i'm sure this is an easy problem in your books.

i'm working on a campain for myself (maybe i'll release it, if it's any good when done), and the first few missions call for some deep space proximity mines. easy enough to rig; set special explosion, rig sexp for distance, or even kamikaze works sometimes. anyways, the first mission only had seven of the things. that's seven detonation sexp's, and then four more for when they come in (one alone, then in pairs).

the problem comes from the second mission. you're smack dab in the middle of this minefield, and you've got a scientific convoy to protect. well, i would have just sucked it up and done it all by hand, but FRED2 complained that it ran out of storage space after i think it was ten mines. told me to check the variables, and i did. wowsers, that was a lot of variables.

normally, i would have just set the objects to arrive in waves, from what i can tell, you can only do that to wings. well, you can't assign cargo units to wings. and creating a dummy object (small frieghter) to come in (invisible to sensors) 2000m away from anything, drop it and jump out, but everyone sees it and starts attacking it.

anyways, i've gotten nowhere on this. is there anyway to dynamically create these mines without overloading anything? or is it just not going to happen, and i should scrap the project? please let me know. and don't hurt me.

there was a campaign in fs1 called cardinal spear (nice one as well) well anyway if am not mistaken there were prox mines in it using the countermeasures as the model:D. i think i still got it's weapon table here you go.

$Name:               @Mine
+Title:               GTM-02 Proimity Mine
+Description:
Standard Issue
Fire and Forget
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description:
GTM-02 Proximity Mine

Proximity mines have been used throught all warfare in all of history, the Terran Vasudan war is no exception. The Mine is rear fired from the launching vessel and is proximity detonated to any vessel within 10 meters of it. The main weakness of proximity mines is that they they can be shot down by an enemy, however the mines do have minor IFF capacity and do not detonate when only a friendly ship is near, however some Vasudan pilots have used mines to their advantage by flying close in a dogfight to detonate them and afterburn away from the explosion and the result is the mine laying vessel being annihilated. Mines are effective in many tactical situations including blockades, defense, and for cover in torpedo runs.
$end_multi_text
$Model File:         cmeasure01.pof
$Mass:               800.0
$Velocity:            0.0
$Fire Wait:            0.50
$Damage:            100                  ;; damage applied when within inner radius
$Blast Force:         200.0
$Inner Radius:         40.0               ;; radius at which damage is full
$Outer Radius:         100.0               ;; max radius for attenuated damage
$Shockwave Speed:      10.0               ;; velocity of shockwave.  0 for none.
$Armor Factor:         1.0
$Shield Factor:         1.0
$Subsystem Factor:      1.0
$Lifetime:            600.0
$Energy Consumed:      0.0               ;; Energy used when fired
$Cargo Size:         2.0               ;; Amount of space taken up in weapon cargo
$Homing:               NO
$LaunchSnd:            99                  ;; The sound it makes when fired
$ImpactSnd:            88                  ;; The sound it makes when it hits something
$FlyBySnd:            -1
$Rearm Rate:         5.0               ;; number of missiles/sec that are rearmed
$Flags:               ( "bomb" "in tech database" "huge" "player allowed")                  ;;
$Trail:               NO                     ;; Trail cannot be set if Exhaust is set
$Anim:               LoadMissile01
$Impact Explosion:         ExpMissileHit1
$Impact Explosion Radius:   5.0

this is basically it just copy-paste it into ya weapons table and edit the ship table so ships can carry it or just make it another class so that it can be created in fred and set(please note that this is from fs1 so the entry above my be missing stuff that are in fs2, so you can fly over to freespace watch and find out how to edit the tables

hope that helped. of course there's one more, just a sexp you can use. just make it so when anything is within a certian range to the object it explodes.

[Red_Raven]

warning: long post

i think i've been miss-understood. see, i got all the sexp's for the detonation:

(ship type: SAC 2)
enable special explosion
damage 500, blast 250, inner damage radius, 650, outer damage radius 1200, shockwave speed 250
(i know it all seems high, but charges for anti-warship mines in WWII were unbelievably high, think of what you'd need for a cruiser in space...)

Unknown detonate
     when
          <
               distance
                   
                    Unknown
               400
          self-destruct
               Unknown

so that part's done and no problem, but the problem comes from trying to get more than ten of these said proximity mines in the mission. it overloads the storage space for the mission, and FRED2 can't allocate the data for any more variables (each one of the settings other than default is a new variable. check the variable lists. that's 6 variables for each mine, just for the special explosion (one is boolean, for the shockwave). if you have 10 mines, that ends up with 60 variables that the game has to keep track of just for those said mines, and FRED2 won't let me do any more than that. i would imagine do the same if i tried to put any more ships in also.

what i need help with now is finding a way of dynamically generating these mines, so i can have two or three defined statically, and have them respawn at random points (kind of like the endless wave thing, have Scorpio 92 or something--but not literally that many.). is there any way to do this? i can't allocate the mines to a wing, and have the wing respawn, cause they're caro units. i can't set a respawn priority, cause, well i don't know why. maybe it's because they're, again, cargo.
help!
(trust me, it is a cool idea, and it's not endless, and it has a purpose.

[Red_Raven]

oh wait, another little detail. the player's goal is to destroy these mines, before they detonate by your ships.

[Roy fokker]

Originally posted by Red_Raven
oh wait, another little detail. the player's goal is to destroy these mines, before they detonate by your ships.

well make it so that the player cna destroy them before they get within their detonation range. a simple sexp event will do it.

[Joey_21]

If you're wanting fighters to destroy the mines, wouldn't the shockwave kill those fighters?

[Stealth]

what shockwave?

shockwaves can be disabled

[Joey_21]

Either I'm not understanding something or something else because here's the way I figure it:

If you have a mine with a shockwave heading toward whatever you're supposed to protect then destroying the mine would result in shockwave and therefore destroying your fighter.

[vadar_1]

you need the mine to be a bomb or else kamakazie, that is if you want the player to destroy the mine before it can detonate, giving it a harmless little explosion

[Star Dragon]

Still new to fredding but here it goes.. If you need to cut down on the explosions BY the mines how about the ones from babylon 5 (LOTR), oops he he Legend of The Rangers (not Lord of the Rings).  They followed the ship when it came into proximity to ram it. when the mine rams the ship have the target ship explode. That's what I did with both The SDF-1 and Khyron's ship for my Last Robotech mission. I had The Crusier ram the SDF-1 and they both destroy themselves.. Took many tries to get the timing right with the voice dialogue!!! Hope you can get something outta that?

[CP5670]

Regarding the mine respawning, I am assuming you are using cargo containers (or something equivalent) for the mines; you should be able to make waves of "mine wings," just like fighter wings, and it should look okay if you select the "no warp effect" checkbox for each mine in the wing. The only thing is that this would have to be done over a distance so that the player does not notice the mines appearing. For randomly selecting the spawning positions, you can put a Pharos nav buoy in the middle of the mine field, and the mines can all spawn at a given radial distance from that. Just say that the "mine field has been marked by a nav beacon" or something in the briefing.

[BlueFlames]

It sounds to me like FRED2 is choking on the massive number of variables that the special explosions have set up.  Because of that, your best bet is to do something similar to what was suggested earlier:  make a new table entry.  Just copy a regular cargo container's entry, modify the explosion values, and there you go.  When you do it like that, you won't need those gobs of variables, so you can probably put in as many mines as you like.

As for the mines blowing up the attacking fighters...  Well--bear with me, because this is complicated--you could shoot them from a distance.    Unless these mines are Meson Bombs, I think its safe to say your guns can probably outrange the blast.

[Grey Wolf]

Use beam mines. Fry the fighters with a single-shot beam cannon that overloads, causing the mine to explode with a very small explosion.

[Red_Raven]

thank you thank you thank you BlueFlames and CP5670!!!

i almost hate to say it, but most people were missing the point. yes it is a big explosion, and yes you can detonate them from a distance (by destroying them) and yes you can outrun the blast. it's easy with the Maxim cannon and Trebuchet's, and you can do it with a Myrmidon, Subach HL-7's and Rockeye's, just hit your burners when it goes critical. just like interceptor missions, where you have to destroy the bombs before they reach the capital ship. sure, they still explode, but at least the ship won't take the full brunt of it (we hope). and the mines are several thousand meters in front of the convoy, giving the player ample time to destroy them before they cause too much damage.

questions though:

CP5670 said to just form wings of the mines, and he's right in saying they are cargo containers. unfortunately, FRED2 won't let me form wings of them. it does that with all the cargo containers. you can form wings of any ships, even Lucifers, but not a wing of Sathanas's (Sathanases, Sathanie?). i think it's just something Volition did on purpose. makes sense.

how about this: would it be feasible to edit the .tbl file, citing that these mines are a new object, but it uses the same model as the SJ SAC 2 cargo units. then i could tell it that these are ships and boom, i can make wings. make sense? i don't know if it would work, i haven't done anything within the .vp files yet. figured i'd have to sooner or later though.....

responses still welcome. please!

[TheCelestialOne]

Originally posted by Red_Raven
warning: long post

You haven't visited the NodeWars forum yet have you?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Red_Raven

questions though:

CP5670 said to just form wings of the mines, and he's right in saying they are cargo containers. unfortunately, FRED2 won't let me form wings of them. it does that with all the cargo containers. you can form wings of any ships, even Lucifers, but not a wing of Sathanas's (Sathanases, Sathanie?). i think it's just something Volition did on purpose. makes sense.

Fortunately FRED is rather stupid. Create a wing of fighters THEN change them into a wing of whatever you want. I`ve not actually tried this in game (FRED says that there is an error) but it might work in game (FRED often complains about things which later work)

Originally posted by Red_Raven

how about this: would it be feasible to edit the .tbl file, citing that these mines are a new object, but it uses the same model as the SJ SAC 2 cargo units. then i could tell it that these are ships and boom, i can make wings. make sense? i don't know if it would work, i haven't done anything within the .vp files yet. figured i'd have to sooner or later though.....

responses still welcome. please!

It's perfectly feasable as far as I can see. I don`t know which tag on the ships table is the one you`d need to edit though. If you`ve edited the table though you don`t really need to worry about wings though since you`ll solve your variable problem that way

[Hippo]

Kamakazi Cargo

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Red_Raven
but not a wing of Sathanas's (Sathanases, Sathanie?).

Sathanae

[penguin]

Originally posted by Red_Raven
... it uses the same model as the SJ SAC 2 cargo units.

OMG... A 6km cargo container just warped in ahead...  DIVE DIVE DIVE, HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOTS!

couldn't resist...