*Trying to get the alien to hatch

I'm developing a plug that plants alien-type eggs in a system which you can either destroy or aggrivate them enough to hatch (also destroy technically). Their excape ship is the alien, which will most likely attack the player once it's hatched. Here are my problems:

For some reason, no matter how much I try, I can't kill the "egg"

I can't make the egg self destruct "or hatch itself"
(well I can, but I want to here your ideas for this) SOLVED (Still post your ideas though)

Since the egg's invinsible, I don't know if the "hatchlings" will even show up (I'm pretty sure I set it up right, but I don't know yet)

If I fix one of these problems, or find another, I'll update this thread. Please help

(Sadly, the plug is too big to submitt, even when stripped down. The best I can give is screenshots of the menus, which I'll submitt if you ask)

This post has been edited by Snaily : 02 July 2007 - 09:54 PM

The egg will release an Alien without coughing, but it still can't be destroyed. Also, the Alien's instantly PO'ed with you the second it is released. Now if that darn egg will just blow up...

I assume your egg is a shďp. To make the egg self-destruct, just give it a wëap that does 0 damage and is invisible, with -999 in the AmmoType field. Make sure the egg is hostile to the player so it will fire the weapon. When it fires this weapon at the player (or anyone else), it will blow up and release the escape ship.

If you're having trouble destroying it by firing on it, make sure that if the egg is planet-type, the player has a planet-type weapon, and if it's not planet-type, the player's weapon isn't either.

Also, you say the egg is invisible? What do you mean by this? Is it cloaked, or does it have an invisible sprite? This could have something to with why you can't destroy it.

This post has been edited by Nil'kimas : 02 July 2007 - 09:37 PM

Wha, whoops! I meant invinsible

Well, this is what happens to my understanding:

I drain the egg's shields and armor
It dies, and releases an alien (excape ship)

After that, it just sits there. It can't be targeted or attacked.

I'll use the -999 ammotype trick by the way, thanks for suggesting that.

No the egg's visible, sorry I confused you.

It's dead, you just have a long death delay with no explosions.

@joshtigerheart, on Jul 2 2007, 10:54 PM, said in Alien Egg "Explosion":

It's dead, you just have a long death delay with no explosions.

I thought that too, but the weird thing is it has the same type of explosion as some of my other plugs. I'll take a screenshot of the "ship" resource, and tell me if you see anything iffy What_s_wrong_with_this_picture_.jpg (58.61K)
Number of downloads: 31

Sounds more like a very short death delay. Make it at least 3.

Oh, thanks Guy, I'll make the death delay longer. That's wierd, i though I already tried that. Guess it didn't save...

Well, if so see anything else weird tell me

This post has been edited by Snaily : 02 July 2007 - 10:06 PM

Yep, found a problem with the aliens that come out of the eggs. They have a very odd behavior. First off, it takes about 2 seconds for them to realise they hate me (which personally, I think is a cool effect, but whatever), and here' the freaky part, you'll hear the warning alarm, it will appear hostile, and then either fly off or if in an inhabited system, land on a planet. Shortly after this, it gets PO'ed again, you hear the alarm, and the cycle repeats.
Any suggestions?

(Edit) I think this only occurs when you release the egg as an escort, and then destroy it. If not i'll edit again.

This post has been edited by Snaily : 02 July 2007 - 10:58 PM

What are the weapons it has? You have some weapon with only 1 ammo (clearly that won't last long) and another which I assume doesn't need ammo but the ship is completely blind so I hope it's not a turret.
Ah, but the real problem is you're using a wimpy trader AI.

I've updated the ship since then Guy, but what it was was a "self destruct" weapon, which I got rid of since it didn't work too well for some reason (the egg wouldn't "fire it", probably a problem relating to the weapons distance.. I don't know). The hatchling does stay aggrivated with you all the time it turns out, It's just when you hire an egg for escort (when finished you won't be able to do this anyways), release it, then blow it up. Plus, I think all escape pods have a wimpy trader AI in that situation, accoring to some of the other developer's problems. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

I'm still testing, so I'll post any more problems that arrise. Thanks for the help so far everyone :laugh:

Yes, all the escape pods (hatchlings) are behaving this way. My plan is to somehow get the egg to launch the aliens right befreo it dies, but not as an excape pod. Any ways I could do this? Here's my plan:

Make the egg invinsible by all means

Make it fire it's weapon when you get it mad, which will cause it to self destruct (see above)

If it works, the hatchings will be fighters and not excape pods, and will attack you regardless.

The only problem with my idea is the egg, if I use the government that makes them mad at you all the time, will instantly release it's hatchling and blow the whole point of it, but if is just peachy till you shoot it, the fighters might not attack. I'll keep testing and fill everyone in on the details.

This post has been edited by Snaily : 03 July 2007 - 09:27 AM

give the govt a close-range aggression, and make it shoot only when it is shot at (friendly legal system).

I'll try that thanks

@snaily, on Jul 4 2007, 02:09 AM, said in Alien Egg "Explosion":

It's just when you hire an egg for escort, release it, then blow it up. Plus, I think all escape pods have a wimpy trader AI in that situation, accoring to some of the other developer's problems. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

Ships that are created using a dude will use the AI type defined for that dude. Ships that are not created using a dude (including released escorts, escape ships (note the difference between escape ship and escape pod) and carried fighters whose parent is destroyed) obviously can't get their AI type from a dude - this is what a ship's inherent AI type is for. You have set your inherent AI type to wimpy trader so of course they will all be acting like wimpy traders.

Ok, thanks Guy. Hope this works

Man and geez, I'm still having problems... Ah well. I think I'll work on this on a later date; I'm busy working on bigger and better things than to worry about an alien egg

However, if anyone still has ideas to good eggsplosion ideas, please post them! There's nothing like original material from someone else