I'm wondering if this is possible.

I want to have planet that recharges shields. Is there anyway for a ships shield to recharge faster if they are next to a planet or in a system? Or could I make an outfit that everytime you jump in to that system makes your shields recharge faster? Let me know.

To my knowledge, all outfits that modify shield regeneration are "always-on" deals.

If only weapons could do negative damage, then there'd be a way to do this; you'd just stick an invisible ship on each planet that fires a bomb weapon with no knockback and negative damage. But they can't.

I think your idea can't be done. Sorry.

@derakon, on Mar 22 2006, 08:03 PM, said in Outfit question...:

To my knowledge, all outfits that modify shield regeneration are "always-on" deals.

If only weapons could do negative damage, then there'd be a way to do this; you'd just stick an invisible ship on each planet that fires a bomb weapon with no knockback and negative damage. But they can't.

I think your idea can't be done. Sorry.

Thanks...that is what I thought. Anyone else have any ideas...

It should be possible to increase (or decrease) your shield recharge rate when you are in a specific system.
Basically, you place a self-destructing spob* in the system, and in its OnDestroy field, have it give you the recharge outfit. To have the outfit removed properly, you'll want to add a fires-every-day cron** to remove the outfit. Make sure the spob regenerates every day, so that it can re-give you the outfit if you are still in the same system after one day has passed.

If you were really fancy, it might be possible to fake a near-planet effect, by placing a self-destructing spob with a short-range weapon near the spob you want to have have the effect, and having it also trigger a mission when it dies. That mission would call in a self-destructing ship, and when that ship appeared, it would remove the outfit and resurrect the spob, which would destroy itself again if the player was still in range. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

This effect could also be extended to other outfit types, even...
...weapons. A weapon that you can only use when you are near a particular spob. That would be cool.

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*To make a self-destructing spob, give a spob a low strength value, and also give it a very long range planet-type weapon. When the player enters the system, the spob will fire at them, regardless of whether or not they are flying a planet-ship, and it will destroy itself, triggering its OnDestroy field. See my Guide to Spob-based Weapons for information on how to make a spob fire at the player.

**Perhaps this would be an actual use for the bugginess of crons? I seem to recall Guy listing bugs in that resource, including the following:
" pre hold off is 0 and duration and post holdoff are both positive (cron never terminates and executes OnEnd every day for the rest of your life)"
It seem that this would be perfect for this sort of application, assuming it hasn't been worked around in the 1.0.9 update. (The famous always-existing crons from the Nova scenario, which always appeared in the pilotlog with negative numbers, and blocked most news from appearing in the Bar, are no longer showing up in my pilotlogs. However, I have tested identical crons in a testbed scenario, and for the first few days, at least, they work exactly as Guy outlined above. :huh: )

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I'm sorry if none of the above made sense. It's late here, and I tend to make inaccurate assumptions about how well people can follow my train of association when I'm tired. Just tell me you can't understand a word I said, and I'll post a more detailed explanation tomorrow.

Edwards

@edwards, on Mar 23 2006, 06:23 AM, said in Outfit question...:

This effect could also be extended to other outfit types, even...

Like if you are near a star or planet, you get a hefty jammer.
(stars could be a IR source that spoofs IR missiles, radar misisles confused because you're near the planet, etc...)

Or you get sensor interference close to the spob.

Hmmm. You could also simulate the no-jumping too close to planets, even for those far from the system center, by granting an outfit with a large hyperspace no-jump.

A cloaking shield would be cool too.

Lots of neat stuff. Too bad you can only affect the player this way.

Well, you may only be able to affect the player with this, but it's still pretty cool to have a weapon that becomes "super-charged" if you fly around a bit near a spob (not to mention all the other outfits. Even cargo space , if you could find a use (and excuse) for it...). Unfortunately, this trick is a bit finicky, because self-destructing spobs will only self-destruct (for the player) if either:

1. The an AI ship whose govt is an enemy of the spob is within range, or
2. The player has a bad legal record in the system and is within range.
   The second condition is easy to set up, but will probably cause problems with warships patrolling the system. The first is somewhat harder, but still not too bad. Simply set up two govt that are enemies of each other, and set the spob to use one of them. For the other, make it an enemy of the player, and create a mission that sets a very high-speed inertialess ship to chase the player. It should cling to the player like a leech, and it will set off the spob whenever the player gets in range. Unfortunately, this does have the side-effects of having the warning klaxxon go off every time the player enters a system, and causing a red dot to flash around the player on the radar.
   It is also theoretically possible to have the spob fire if the player's ship's InherentGovt is an enemy of the spob, but that hasn't been working for me lately, and would cause problems if any AI ships had the same govt.

Anyway, here's a quick demo plug for how to use this trick to supercharge a weapon when the player is near a spob. Use it with the normal Nova data, and head to Tidbinbilla. Buy the weapon available there, and go over to the new spob in the system. When you reach it, the weapon should become very powerful. A few seconds after you fly away, the weapon will weaken again.

Edwards

Attached File(s)

• NearSpob_Demo.bin.zip (2.04K)
  Number of downloads: 30

@edwards, on Mar 23 2006, 06:23 AM, said in Outfit question...:

To have the outfit removed properly, you'll want to add a fires-every-day cron** to remove the outfit. Make sure the spob regenerates every day, so that it can re-give you the outfit if you are still in the same system after one day has passed.

I've been fooling around with self-destructing spobs, and I've found that you don't need to date post to get it to regenerate. You don't even need the self-destructing dude misn.

In one test, that I can't seem to recreate yet, the spob made a computer beep sound every time it regenerated. It was regenerating and dying so fast that it made a "ringing" sound when you flew close to it.

I'm having trouble getting it to consistantly fire on the player though...

I also found that if you have the "can only land if destroyed" flag checked (which doesn't work in NovaTools) the planet acts as if it is dead when not destroyed - and won't respond to hails, and presumably won't fire either.

This came up because I was trying to simulate docking with a large ship (and bring up a landing screen and everything) I thought that maybe I could get the ship to fly to the "designated area" (invisible spob), which would cause the spob to fire at it, destroying itself and allowing you to land. After the ship flies away, it will stop firing and won't allow you to land anymore.

I like it. The things we do with this engine...

@aelran, on Mar 24 2006, 01:58 PM, said in Outfit question...:

I like it. The things we do with this engine...

The bit monkey has spoken.

Some one tell aftermath about this...it seems like this would be a sweet idea for the vellos as they approach large pockets of there own. Since all that stuff about connecting with other vellos...basically say they become more powerful as they get closer to large pockets of vellos.

This post has been edited by Swithich : 24 March 2006 - 07:29 PM