I'm wondering if there is a way to get rid of an escort that you've captured through ncb's.. In other words, at one moment you have an escort, the next you don't. I don't want to have to count on it getting destroyed and instead having it hang around is a pebble in the shoe of my story line.
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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(This message has been edited by Kame (edited 01-16-2003).)
Hmm... not really. Escorts you capture in combat are really yours- they are outside the scope of the designer's control. You can, however, fairly easily assign escorts and take them away using an invisible mission. These function as escorts, but don't count against the player's total (6 possible), although I may be wrong on that last point. If I am, then you can simply prevent the player from ever capturing any escorts other than the 6 you give him.
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~Charlie
Ideally you would watch it blow up as the bad guys attack. So in order to guarantee it's destruction it would have to be very weak (which might cause questions about the story from those paying attention). You also have to use this ship for a short period which would give away just how weak it is. (In the story you use this ship mentioned to board and capture another ship that has been disabled while pirates are attacking. Your partner stays behind in the first ship but doesn't survive. It would just seem odd if the ship survived then in the text you read that they died, yet you still have the escort from switching ships.) Might just have to use the workaround on this one.
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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
Simple! Click on it, hail it, then either Sell Escort, or Release it.
ewan
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(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/ewan/")"In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey - the monkey will spank us!!"(/url)
Is it a ship that the player captures, or is it granted from the story line? As Masamune said, you can give the player escorts through missions, similar to the escorting a fleet of cargo carrier missions popular in Escape Velocity (The first one). That is the only real way, and the escorts will dissapear after the mission is failed, completed, or aborted.
To do this, set the special ship type in the invisible mission, and have the shipSyst as -6, the ShipGoal as 3 (escort them), ShipBehav as 1 (protect the player), etc. The ship will act as an escort.
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Eat blazing electric death!
No, what happens is that you get on board your friend's ship at the start of a mission, leaving yours behind. This ship has a special cargo that grants you the highest possible capture odds possible (but it's not revealed that way). So you take your new ship (that really belongs to your friend) to a certain system where low and behold there's a very special derelict ship just drifting there in outer space. So you go over and attempt to capture. But as you make your way over pirates jump in and try to kill you. So hopefully you've successfully captured the derelict ship which means you now have your previous ship as an escort (which for story purposes still contains your friend). But your friend isn't supposed to stay alive. So this is where the problem lies. There's always a chance that they could survive which screws up the text in the story. I thought about being able to offer missions depending on if you had the escort or not but this doesn't seem possible either.
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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
Create some npc's whose mission is to destroy your old ship but not you. Make them real powerful.
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"We live, we die. Get over it."
"If by being abnormal we are normal, and by being normal we are abnormal, we create a paradox loop and therefore we neither exist nor not exist. We simply are."
- Zerak Toman
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Originally posted by Zerak Toman:
Create some npc's whose mission is to destroy your old ship but not you. Make them real powerful.
Ooooh, is this possible? If I set the Special Ships to attack target and I change ships they'll procede to attack the same ship no matter what?
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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
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Ooooh, is this possible? If I set the Special Ships to attack target and I change ships they'll procede to attack the same ship no matter what?
Um, I don't think so. You can set special ships to attack you, or follow thier normal AI (ie attack everything if they're pirates). Either way there's no way to ensure that your old ship is destroyed.
You could try playing around with the OnCapture and OnRetire fields to see if you could give your old ship a lethal bomb outfit just before you leave it.
Or, if you're using a mission to control the creation of the new ship, you could use the OnBoard field in the mission to cause something (although then you'd have to use C, E or H control bits since you can't actually capture a mission-ship)
(Edit: Checked some stuff in the bible)
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(url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/newkongindustries/")New Kong Industries (/url) - Home of the Night's Dawn TC, and the MissionPack!
(This message has been edited by simon (edited 01-16-2003).)
Actually, now that I know the scenario, this isn't all that difficult. What you do is avoid ACTUALLY capturing the ship using the normal routines.
Step one: As part of the set up mission where you get your buddy's ship, use the C, E, or X NCB's to give him your ship. Set up a background mission that gives him your ship as an escort.
Step two: in the system you are jumping to, put a special PERS with a linked mission (like the derelict-decoy missions). Boarding the disabled person gives you a mission, which, again, uses the C, E, or X NCB to give you the disabled ship. Again, activate a background mission that makes your old ship an escort.
Step three: make sure the escort gets blown up!
Voila!
Hope that helps. If you want, I can explain in more detail.
~Charlie
Yeah, it's step 3 that's the problem. I have everything else worked out already. I'm pretty much down to two options now - just need to decide which one to employ. One involves your friend dieing in the storyline text and simply granting the ship to your character (more reliable and storyline intensive). The other is what I mentioned before with having to capture the ship - probably via using a small fighter (something that'll blow-up easily) (harder and more open to chance, plus you get to name the ship). I guess the main difference is just the means in which your friend dies (evil grin). OR! I could incorporate them both... oooh, new idea. Thanks for help guys.
(edit)small addition{/edit)
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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
(This message has been edited by Kame (edited 01-17-2003).)
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Originally posted by Githon:
Sorry if this is dumb, but that sounds a lot like the early plot of Outlaw Star >_<
Um... no it's not... really... it's way way different ... i don't know what you're talking about...
*quickly tries to eat all related documents
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I used to jog but the ice kept falling out of my glass.
This is similar to what Masasume said, but not quite identical.
Go off to the system. Board you ship you wanted captured. As before, make it a pers that starts another mission when you board it. Because the ship-change bits exchange the new ship for your old one, your old one disappears. Simply put text in the mission desc that says something along the lines of 'you watch in horror as (oldshipname) is destroyed.' I believe it's also possible to give a new ship the same name as the old one, but I'm not sure about that.
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