There may be a great deal of them.

Since I've started so many topics here asking for help on a problem I may have had or am having, I started feeling guilty and so I'm going to start one topic and put all my problems in here. Things should be made a bit less messy that way.

Anyway, I'm having some weird sort of problem with swapping out systems; I need to be able to use a different set of systems for CTC-C so I don't have fighters and capital ships flying alongside each other and fighting each other. Things would look very comical if I did that. I copied all the systems from CTC-F (The "stock" scenario, since CTC-C is technically a plug-in) and put "!b7001 & !b7002" in their visbit fields. This way, players will be able to use their old fighter pilots and make new CTC-F pilots along side CTC-M and CTC-C. I've tested this and it works.

Now, the second copy of systems for CTC-C (starting from RID 300 and up) have "!b7001 & b7002" in their visbit fields. The char for starting CTC-C pilots sets b7002 on pilot start, so it'll hide the CTC-F systems and replace them with the identical CTC-C systems. (Just as a note, b7001 is for CTC-M if it ever gets finished.) At the moment the CTC-C systems are devoid of any ships traffic, but this is music to me nonetheless.

My main problems are as follows;

• Fighters surround the player when he/she first enters their ship. The problem with this is that they player will be able to play rock-em sock-em with the fighters there, but so far I have lost to the staff ships. I must be rusty. But this isn't my worst problem, so far...

• Capital ships are extremely vulnerable to ionization. The AI seems to handle it fine, but player ships will be paralyzed for a short time by ionization. That was the cause. The effect here is that the player won't be able to duel in the system with the EMP generator. They'll get creamed. I've tried it. The scary part is that I've replaced the EMP generator in the CTC-C version of the system with a nerfed EMP generator, and replaced the str# to reflect this, but when I enter that system, no changes are evident; the EMP generator paralyzes my ship, the old message buoy string appears, and even the debug log shows that I've entered the old system, (flipping system 134, instead of 305) and the system has no fighters in it. Nothing, just like it should, except it isn't the new system. It's extremely weird.

Can I expect any help on this, or am I stuck in the mud?

For the ionization issue, perhaps you could add an extra lengthy burst reload and have it be a "pulse" type thing that temporarily hoses over ships extremely rather than constantly impairing them.

Also, wouldn't giving systems visbits prevent random missions from appearing there? I've not done enough modding to run into that problem yet, but I seem to recall it being the case.

EDIT: Though... maybe you could switch out the starting system instead of the auxiliary ones...

This post has been edited by Keldor Sarn : 19 July 2008 - 09:36 PM

1. Well then, the player just won't be fighting the staff fighters. He shouldn't be in CTCF or CTCM either.

2. Try giving the player a huge ionization max and huge ionization release values.

@Keldor Sarn: The EMP generator is already a one-shot, wait, one-shot, wait weapon.

It's really more of a fire-fire-fire-fire-fire weapon that submunitions into several copies of itself once or twice, each shot detonating with a ridiculous blast radius each time.

Jaca, check your hyperlink IDs.

The player's ship can only turn at 15ş/s increments. Thus, if the ionization is sufficient to make the player's ship turn at a rate less than 15ş/s, it can't turn at all. The AI ships are not restricted to 15ş/s steps in turn rate.

10°, isn't it?
(edit) No, 30°.

This post has been edited by Guy : 20 July 2008 - 03:15 AM

You're right. 30ş/s.

@keldor-sarn, on Jul 19 2008, 08:34 PM, said in CTC-C Developing Trouble:

For the ionization issue, perhaps you could add an extra lengthy burst reload and have it be a "pulse" type thing that temporarily hoses over ships extremely rather than constantly impairing them.

Also, wouldn't giving systems visbits prevent random missions from appearing there? I've not done enough modding to run into that problem yet, but I seem to recall it being the case.

EDIT: Though... maybe you could switch out the starting system instead of the auxiliary ones...

Eh, I'll consider a "pulse" type weapon, but for the moment, I'm more concerned with getting my systems to link correctly.

CTC uses special governments to control where a player has to go to fight a duel. The one-on-one duels and similar happen in systems belonging to one government while team battles occur in systems belonging to another. I'm using the same government IDs as CTC-F, and so far the Duel Test mission I've made works correctly from start to finish.

As I've said earlier, I need to swap out all the systems (with the noticeable exception of the "end" system where the player goes after completing a storyline) so that the staff ships and AI duelists will show up correctly. This way you won't see fighters and capital ships fighting with each other.

@lnsu, on Jul 19 2008, 10:25 PM, said in CTC-C Developing Trouble:

1. Well then, the player just won't be fighting the staff fighters. He shouldn't be in CTCF or CTCM either.

2. Try giving the player a huge ionization max and huge ionization release values.

@Keldor Sarn: The EMP generator is already a one-shot, wait, one-shot, wait weapon.

1. I'm thinking about using the Mxxx command in the char resource to fix this.

2. This will unbalance the AI and player ships when they fight each other in duels, as I'm using ionizing weapons in duels.

I did find out what the problem is; apparently I forgot to swap out the EMP generator for a nerfed one, so it was operator error on my part. It is still showing the message buoy string for the old system, which is a bit unsettling, but for now I'm just going to live with it.

EV Nova is notoriously how do you say obnoxious about s˙st swapping. I highly recommend that you place your new systems at different coordinates on the map than the old systems. Even just a one-pixel displacement should fix almost everything.

+1 pixel displacement on the X axis coming right up!...

(e.g. If Qaanol recommends it, then not doing it would be like staying in a burning building.)

Edit: Undocumented feature 127: Having spobs in multiple systems, even if they can't be visible due to NCB constraints, will cause the spobs to disappear.

(I don't know where the fighters come into this, possibly I was transported to system 128 where there are fighters, but I'm not sure.)

It looks like if you duplicate systems, you have to duplicate the spobs as well. See ya'll in a while...

This post has been edited by JacaByte : 20 July 2008 - 02:41 PM

The spöb should appear properly in the lowest-ID s˙st that has it, and should be invisible (and still targetable but not landable) in the others. As for where the fighters come from—I don't know. Maybe for development purposes you could add the letter C to the start of each capital ship system name, so when you check your map you'll know whether you're in the right one. Or, for that matter, you could add each system's ID to its name, so you'll know if you're in 128 or 129 or whatever. That's pretty easy to do with ConText/ResStore.

And to expand on what I said earlier, having the systems at the same coordinates on the map leads to complications with implicit reciprocal links and transient spöbs. Separating them makes things behave exactly as you specify in the resources.

As for your current problem with fighters appearing, as far as I know the only ways ships can appear in a system are:

düde, përs, flët, mďsn, planetary defense

So if they are definitely düde ships then either your system is set up differently than you intended, or your ship is in a different system than you meant for it to be.

This post has been edited by Qaanol : 20 July 2008 - 04:04 PM

@qaanol, on Jul 20 2008, 03:03 PM, said in CTC-C Developing Trouble:

So if they are definitely düde ships then either your system is set up differently than you intended, or your ship is in a different system than you meant for it to be.

Yeah, that's the strange part. I started a new pilot and all was as it should have been; no fighters anywhere. I did get the problem with transient spobs fixed, and I got all the complications with existing missions straightened out (the Duel Test was offered from spob 128, which the player no longer had access too, and the introduction extending mission spawned a ship in a system that the player also didn't have access too.) so I think I'm ready to put the final touches on the novice class duels and tackle the intermediate duels.