You could set the ai of the drone to 'runs away when out of ammo' and that removes the AIs reluctance to fire -999 ammotype weapons.
If you could hold onto that invulnerability outfit until the moment the drone comes, there would be no chance of getting hurt during it. So long as you make sure the outfit is actually removed just before the missiles hit.
NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 20 2005, 07:28 AM, said:
You could set the ai of the drone to 'runs away when out of ammo' and that removes the AIs reluctance to fire -999 ammotype weapons.
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It still won't actually generate a weapon sprite when it fires, unless you know something I don't.
-reg
Hmm... what do you mean? If you gave a ship two real missiles and set the flag 'runs when out of ammo', and made it a misndude assigned to attack player, it would fire off the missiles and jump out of the system. Where does the problem come in? Invisible projectiles not hitting accurately?
Regulus, on Apr 20 2005, 05:55 AM, said:
It still won't actually generate a weapon sprite when it fires, unless you know something I don't.
-reg
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In my experience, a -999 ammotype weapon does generate a projectile (although it might have just been an explosion- it's been a while since I made that space mine ship. It did kill you, though, so it was a weapon blast).
However, NebuchadnezzaR's "run away when out of ammo" solution should work well, as it removes the problem of getting the weapons to fire in the correct order.
Also, I'm not sure if this was mentioned before, but you could give the super-regen outfit to the normally shielded fighter while the shield-lowering ship is firing at it. A ship's shields won't recharge above 100%, so this will prevent the ship's shields from being lowered below fighter-max without any side effects (other than temporary invulnerability). This might work even better if the shield-lowering ship fires a volley of about a dozen 100-damage shots.
This would eliminate stage 2, one mission, and the extra ship.
Edwards
Hey! I have a decent implementation idea. Im not sure how good it would look, but the frame of it is:
The weapon 'Launch fighter wing' from inside the carrier is a fighterbay that contains the carrier. When you fire it, it launches a carrier, from your carrier, AND destroys your ship. The carrier also contains a fighter with the flag escape ship, and i suppose missions lend you the recharger to fix the 'random damage,'
Hmm... thuogh the -999 ammo precludes fighter type, doesnt it... so that would have to be handled differently.
Also, would your escorts go feral when you pop into your escape ship? That would sort of mess this up, i suppose, but could be handled with self restarting misions with the onabort strings. Anyway, i have no idea how to get back into the carrier. If the carrier does go feral, you could make it say something with the Qxxx and jump out of the system (like it would do automatically). Something like, "Do your magic. We'll rendezvous(sp? :p) at Altair, we need to pull out the capital ships to evade detection."
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Edwards idea, though, is brilliant and promising. I suppose theres a good chance it will work better. The idea of 12 seperate shots that each do just less damage than the figter can take (actually, it should be more like infinate shield damage and just barely less armor damage than the fighter has total.) The ship only gets the recharge one it drops down to acceptable levels, and the recharge keeps consecutive shots from killing the fighter.
NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 22 2005, 08:43 AM, said:
The weapon 'Launch fighter wing' from inside the carrier is a fighterbay that contains the carrier. When you fire it, it launches a carrier, from your carrier, AND destroys your ship.View Post
1.) This would mean the carrier couldn't have any bööm or death delay at all, even if it were destroyed normally.
2.) AmmoType -999 can not be used with AmmoType 99, as you later point out, nor can fighters be generated from submunitions, nor can, in fact, any weapon sprite actually be created by a -999
type weapon.
NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 22 2005, 08:43 AM, said:
Also, would your escorts go feral when you pop into your escape ship?View Post
Presumably, which is why it's better to use Hxxx strings - they stay attatched to your ship and can then be recalled into your carrier once you re-board it.
NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 22 2005, 08:43 AM, said:
If the carrier does go feral, you could make it say something with the Qxxx and jump out of the system (like it would do automatically). Something like, "Do your magic. We'll rendezvous(sp? :p) at Altair, we need to pull out the capital ships to evade detection."View Post
I'm using approximately this excuse already.
Edwards' idea will indeed work fine, and I intend to implement it in a day or two. After that's done we can tackle the issue of rehabiliating your fighter after we Hxxx you back into the carrier.
-reg
Regulus, on Apr 22 2005, 11:54 AM, said:
...nor can, in fact, any weapon sprite actually be created by a -999
type weapon.View Post
I beg to differ on this point. Attached to this post is a plug containing a ship with four different weapons, all of them with ammotype -999. Three of them, when fired, produce a weapon sprite. The fouth is a beam, and it demonstrates that ammotype -999 does not work for beams. You can buy the ship or hire it from the bar, to test its weapons with the AI.
And don't worry about the "zero ammo" shown in the secondary weapon info field, the weapons fire just fine- once. 
Edwards
PS. Yes, you do lose your escorts when you use an escape ship. Odd, how their loyalty is to your ship, rather than to you.
Minus_999.bin.zip (1.23K)NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 22 2005, 01:43 PM, said:
The weapon 'Launch fighter wing' from inside the carrier is a fighterbay that contains the carrier. When you fire it, it launches a carrier, from your carrier, AND destroys your ship. The carrier also contains a fighter with the flag escape ship, and i suppose missions lend you the recharger to fix the 'random damage,'
View Post
Hm, that's an interesting idea. What if instead of an escape ship you used keycarried to make your ship suddenly look like a fighter and then somehow add some outfits to make it behave like a fighter. Then you can recall the carrier (and somehow remove the outfits again).
Course, you'd still have to worry about getting the shield down so it doesn't help really.
This post has been edited by Guy : 23 April 2005 - 12:14 AM
Here's an idea:
Set the carrier to have the same shield/armor values as the fighter. Whenever they get the ship, Gxxx a + shield/armor outfit for the positive differences of the shields and armor of the two ships. When they switch to the fighter, Dxxx it. When they switch back, Gxxx it back.
I see exactly one possible flaw: that Nova won't recalculate it when you switch. Anyone care to test?
This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 23 April 2005 - 06:59 PM
You could, but it wouldnt do any good. The thing is that it recalculates the max in flight (ie when to stop regenerating), but it doesnt cap the current value to the max (ie when you have more shields than the fighter, you keep them until you get hit down to whatever it is, then you regen back up).
Edwards, on Apr 19 2005, 05:58 AM, said:
I hate to break it to you guys, but negative shield/armor regeneration is one of the thing that just plain doesn't work.
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Are you saying that negative shield/armor regen outfits don't work period, or that your ship's regen cannot be negative. Ie, could an outfit still make you regen slower than normal?
Guy said:
Are you saying that negative shield/armor regen outfits don't work period, or that your ship's regen cannot be negative. Ie, could an outfit still make you regen slower than normal?
A ship can never use negative regeneration to lose shield or armor points. Adding a negative regeneration outfit can reduce the rate at which shields recharge. Sorry about apparently saying the opposite- I hadn't tested that use, as it didn't seem relevant to the current problem. :rolleyes:
Aha, thats good to know.
I should really test all this, and I still need a list of all of the outfits AI notice. Cloaks and scoops, right?
NebuchadnezzaR, on Apr 25 2005, 08:08 AM, said:
You could, but it wouldnt do any good. The thing is that it recalculates the max in flight (ie when to stop regenerating), but it doesnt cap the current value to the max (ie when you have more shields than the fighter, you keep them until you get hit down to whatever it is, then you regen back up).
Ah, good point. I didn't think of that.
This is one place where a scripting language would kick ass.
Of course, you could always explain it by calling it an uber-fighter. 
