I just read the Nova Bible and it says that extra outfits that I give the computer won't be used by it.
Now I would like to have my ships be very customizable, pretty much my idea was that you would
get a ship with nothing on it and then have to add your own armor, shields, reactors and so on. If
The computer doesn't use such outfits do I just have to make varients of each ship for the computer
to use but uncapturable or is there some other way of doing it?

@sp3cies, on Dec 18 2006, 07:56 AM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

I just read the Nova Bible and it says that extra outfits that I give the computer won't be used by it.

That is true, although, if I recall correctly, there are just a couple types that the computer will be able to utilize. Don't hold to that too tightly though.

@sp3cies, on Dec 18 2006, 07:56 AM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

Now I would like to have my ships be very customizable, pretty much my idea was that you would
get a ship with nothing on it and then have to add your own armor, shields, reactors and so on. If
The computer doesn't use such outfits do I just have to make varients of each ship for the computer
to use but uncapturable or is there some other way of doing it?

As far as I know, that is how it will have to be done.

@sp3cies, on Dec 18 2006, 12:56 PM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

I just read the Nova Bible and it says that extra outfits that I give the computer won't be used by it.

There are a few (very few) outfits that will be used, I think. But I'm not sure exactly which ones they are. Cloaking devices and mining scoops, possibly.

Quote

Now I would like to have my ships be very customizable, pretty much my idea was that you would
get a ship with nothing on it and then have to add your own armor, shields, reactors and so on. If
The computer doesn't use such outfits do I just have to make varients of each ship for the computer
to use but uncapturable or is there some other way of doing it?

You do need to make variants of each ship, yes. But you don't necessarily have to make them uncapturable.

Let's say you want to make a variant of a default ship for the AI, and you want it to have additional weapons (which are no problem) and extra shields. Now, if you give the variant shield enhancer outfits, it won't use them (but the player will get them if he captures it). So to give the AI better shields, you need to change the shields stat itself directly.

The problem (as you've realised) is that the player (if he captures the variant) could add shield enhancers on top of that, giving him stronger shields than was ever meant to be possible. But Nova offers at least a couple of ways around this:

For one, you can set up the 'Require' bits so that captured variant ships won't be able to buy shield enhancers;

Another way of doing it is to give the ship shield enhancers, and also give it invisible (and weightless) outfits which subtract the same number of shields. (So, the default ship has 600 shields. The variant has 800, 4 outfits which add 50 shields, and 4 invisible outfits which subtract 50 shields. This works out as 800 for both the player and the AI, and the player can't buy more shields than he was meant to.) This is a roundabout way of doing things, but achieves the desired effect. The main limitation on it would be the number of outfit slots available on a ship, and the number of effects a single outfit can have.

Also, if you want to make a variant ship more (or less) manoeuvrable (speed, acceleration), you can do this via the corresponding govt resource (SkillMult field) for that ship's dude/flet, giving the AI a bonus that the player won't get should he capture the ship.

This post has been edited by pac : 18 December 2006 - 11:12 AM

Ok Thank you both. Back to the drawing boards it is. :S I will see what I can figure out with the 'Require' bits.

Or you could use the OnCapture field to transfer to the normal ship instead and grant the additional outfits for it.

@guy, on Dec 19 2006, 07:52 AM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

Or you could use the OnCapture field to transfer to the normal ship instead and grant the additional outfits for it.

True Hmm, these control bit expressions are much too clever!

@guy, on Dec 19 2006, 12:52 AM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

Or you could use the OnCapture field to transfer to the normal ship instead and grant the additional outfits for it.

Of course! Brilliant, Doctor Watson!

Is OnCapture evaluated when you choose to keep the ship as an escort?

That won't work.

@qaanol, on Dec 19 2006, 12:31 PM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

Is OnCapture evaluated when you choose to keep the ship as an escort?

Yes.

The simplest solution to this (and the way we did it in SS since we're doing the whole build-a-ship thing) is to just make it impossible to keep the ship as an escort.

This post has been edited by orcaloverbri9 : 19 December 2006 - 01:01 PM

So what your saying is that regardless of wheather you use the as your own, or use it as a escort, you ship would get replaced?

Qaanol's question brought another to my mind, is OnCapture evaluated when you capture a fighter for use in a bay?

no. When you capture a fighter for a bay, it is considerred an ammo reload for that bay. That fighter type is not taken into consideration. If you have a standard pirate viper bay, ad you capture some beam variant fighters, it will still only fire standard pirate vipers.

@orcaloverbri9, on Dec 19 2006, 05:59 PM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

The simplest solution to this (and the way we did it in SS since we're doing the whole build-a-ship thing) is to just make it impossible to keep the ship as an escort.

Is this a different thing from just making it uncapturable? If so, how do you set it (I can't see any flag for anything like 'can be captured, but not kept as an escort')?

Anyway, it's good to know that my approaches aren't rendered completely useless.

Well you could always change the dialog so you can't see the option to keep as escort (I don't think there's a keyboard shortcut for those). And then change the text for the keep as my ship button to say, um, something else.

@guy, on Dec 19 2006, 09:11 PM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

Well you could always change the dialog so you can't see the option to keep as escort (I don't think there's a keyboard shortcut for those). And then change the text for the keep as my ship button to say, um, something else.

But that would eliminate the possibility of capturing all ships (as escorts), not just specific variant ones (right?).

Anyway, people seem as inventive with work-arounds as ever around here!

This post has been edited by pac : 19 December 2006 - 06:09 PM

Perhaps those ships that are capturable would haves something in the onBoard field. When you board a ship that you can make yours, the onboard field would trigger an in-flight mission that would pop up immediately asking you if you want to trade your ship for that ship. Of course, the capturing calculations would be taken out of it, but you would get the ship while only being able to capture others as escorts.

@guy, on Dec 19 2006, 04:11 PM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

Well you could always change the dialog so you can't see the option to keep as escort (I don't think there's a keyboard shortcut for those).

@orcaloverbri9, on Dec 19 2006, 12:59 PM, said in Do computers use outfits?:

The simplest solution to this (and the way we did it in SS since we're doing the whole build-a-ship thing) is to just make it impossible to keep the ship as an escort.

...

And there is a shortcut, I think...E. You might be able to get around it by replacing the user item with something useless though.

Well how did you do it then? Oh yeah, the OnBoard field. You could use that along with the OnFire and OnHit field to do some pretty cool stuff :rolleyes:

Smacks Guy

I have it! Let's say that the AI ship has 800 shields and a variant with better shields has 1000 with four "dummy" outfits that do nothing. If you capture the AI ship with the better shields you still get the same amount of shields as the AI and you have four outfits that say they increase shields. If you sell these outfits, using the Gxxx term, you receive four invisible outfits that decrease your shields by 50 points each. So you're back down to 800. If you buy the dummy outfits again the Dxxx term in the on buy field will get rid of the shield decreasers and increase your shields back to 1000.

I hope that all made sense...

One way to do it is to Sxxx a mission that advances the date by 1, then have a cron that activates when you have a specific require bit (which is set by the ship). This cron replaces your ship with the frame and corresponding outfits. The only drawback is that this means a cron for every capturable AI ship. Also, it means the player loses a day every time he captures a ship, though you could explain that away as getting settled into the new ship.