I've been stumped on a problem for a little over 24 hours now, and I was wondering if anyone happened to know, off hand, what the cause of my problem is.

In my continued quest to learn about building the plugins in this game, I've started work on a plug that adds the Emalgha, their ships, weapons, government, and their two systems to the Nova universe. (I basically "copy" "paste"ed them into the new plug so that I could play around with them.)....okay, so I'm making this patch just because I'm rather fond of the Emalgha and not necessarily to learn. I've admitted to it. Now back off. chuckle

Anyway, now that I've done this, none of the Emalgha ships can purchase any forward mounted or turreted weapons from the outfitters. The only modifications I've done to the ships have been realligning the ID's so as not to conflict with the already existing Nova Universe, and to give them their original armaments from Override.

My main goal is to enable their ships to purchase their own armaments, so it took me awhile to realize that this problem was with the ships accepting these two CLASSES of weapons, and not the weapons themselves. (I've tested several other ships, both nova ships and other ships I've added, and they can all buy the Emalghan weapons, btw)

I've tried several modifications but when they didn't work, I changed them back. The only modification I didn't change back is that I've set the weapons to require the government 127 (for Vellow purposes) but from what I can see, this isn't related to the problem. My point being, you can look at the specs from the Override plug useing EVNEW and see basically what I'm seeing.

Any ideas? Many thanks in advance.

-Dax

Doesn't Nova use a Require bit to make sure that Vell-os ships can't buy technological outfits? Even I sometimes forget to set it, and wind up with the problem of not being able to buy anything.

Other than that, all I can say is to recheck the usual suspects: Ship Max Guns / Turrets and Outfit specs / mass.

Could you give some more info on exactly what weapons it can't buy (other than the emalgha weapons) and in what way you are unable to buy them? Ie, what is a "forward mounted" weapon? Could it just be a problem of the ships not having any gun/turret slots, or that they've already been filled up?
Also, 127 isn't a valid government ID (unless you're going by index number). Try removing the RequireGovt and see if that helps.

I set the ships to govt 127 because it's the same govt that Nova sets it's weapons to. It seems to have the effect of permitting all ships, except the vellos, to purchase an item. Why it does that? I don't know. It's one of those things that I still need to learn. The reason why I doubt this is the problem is because the problem existed long before I ever made that modification. Also, I've used this same setting for every other ship I've placed in the game, and they can buy the weapons.

When I describe a forward mounted weapon, I'm referring to any gun that does not swivel, and fires an infinite source of ammo. (Light Blaster, Medium Blaster, etc.) These ships also cannot purchase the associated turrets. Aparently the two Emalgha weapons fit into these two categories.

As far as the usual suspects go, I've checked them and will continue to check them until I manage to solve the problem.

btw, thanks for the responses.

-Dax

Oh yes! The way inwhich I cannot purchase these items, is that the "Buy" button does not light up, and it tells me that I cannot buy any of these items.

This post has been edited by 6 Degrees : 08 October 2004 - 07:07 PM

6 Degrees, on Oct 9 2004, 12:05 PM, said:

I set the ships to govt 127 because it's the same govt that Nova sets it's weapons to. It seems to have the effect of permitting all ships, except the vellos, to purchase an item.
Oh yes! The way inwhich I cannot purchase these items, is that the "Buy" button does not light up, and it tells me that I cannot buy any of these items.
View Post

What? Which version are you running? In 1.0.8, at least, a Contribute bit is set to prevent purchase.

Sure sounds like you don't have any free gun or turret slots. What weapons do you already have on the ship? You could try removing the gun/turret flags from the outfits just to confirm it.

6 Degrees, on Oct 9 2004, 12:05 AM, said:

I set the ships to govt 127 because it's the same govt that Nova sets it's weapons to. It seems to have the effect of permitting all ships, except the vellos, to purchase an item. Why it does that? I don't know. It's one of those things that I still need to learn.

Wrong. It is the contribute bit that affects that. The Vell-os are prevented from buying because of said contribute bit. Take a look at the Shuttle - it will have 1 contribute bit set. Set the same one in your ship and you should* be able to buy weapons.

*Note: I say 'should' because there might be another little problem that we don't know about.

Yeah. That's something that I've failed to mention. Setting the control bit to 1 is one of the first things I did. I made that little discovery on a previous ship I've built.

It does look like it might be a problem with the mass, but that means that the conversion upgrade from a freighter to a destroyer has the problem, since that upgrade provides plenty of mass. But if it is a mass problem, then that explaines the freighter quite nicely. I think I'm going to be looking into that upgrade for awhile.

Also, you guys might not believe me about the 127 govt requirement on the weapons, but it does seem to have an effect on purchasing availability. And it's also something that I picked up from dysecting various Nova-native ships and upgrades.

Anyway, thanks all for the help. I'm going to see if I can fix it through the upgrade, and if I can't, then I'll post again on this thread.

-Dax

If you don't have enough free mass it'll say "Can't hold any of this item" instead of "Can't have any of this item".

Ah, at least I know why none of the ships I was making in my old plug could buy anything anymore when I upgraded one patch level.

At least it now makes more sense than in the old patch versions where Vellos ships could buy outfits and the like. I had my old one with Fusion Pulse Cannons and Carbon Fibre. XD

Hey there guys. I took a break from this problem, and now I've come back to it. This seems to be a problem with all the ships I've ported over from Overdrive. None of them can purchase lazer cannons, turrets, etc.

I haven't had this problem with any ships that I've ported over from EV one, however.

Still looking into the problem.