I hate to make a whole topic about this, but I was curious as to what outfits AI shďps and even përs actually utilize. For instance, do performance boosts (say, an armour upgrade) actually increase the ships armour? If you have a shďp with 700 armour and give it an armour boosting outfit that increases by 100, does your AI ship now have armour of 800 in game (obviously, it would still be 700 in the data)? Similarly, would a shďp with 400 speed and an outfit that grants a 100 speed upgrade have 500 speed in game?

Are there any outfit types that AI shďps do or don't use? What about outfits granted to përs?

I believe they are limited to asteroid scoops, cloaking devices, and jammers.

@joshtigerheart, on Jul 29 2008, 12:56 PM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

I believe they are limited to asteroid scoops, cloaking devices, and jammers.

So, what about performance upgrades? Do they still affect the AI?

I was also wondering about things like mass expansions and cargo pods.

This post has been edited by erikthered : 29 July 2008 - 12:41 PM

If I'm not mistaken, no to all of those. I'm pretty sure that they can only use those three things JTH listed above.

Cloak scanner, fast jumping, repair system.

@crusader-alpha, on Jul 29 2008, 09:47 PM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

If I'm not mistaken, no to all of those. I'm pretty sure that they can only use those three things JTH listed above.

So, putting a shield boosting outfit on an AI ship wouldn't boost its shields? That kind of sucks, but I'll be able to work around it.

Well, there are also the things that Guy listed, and I didn't remember (actually, I hadn't thought of jammers myself until JTH mentioned them), but no, I don't think shield boosters work. However, you should be able to boost AI ships shield power in some resources by a certain percentage.

This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 30 July 2008 - 11:19 AM

@crusader-alpha, on Jul 30 2008, 12:18 PM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

Well, there are also the things that Guy listed, and I didn't remember (actually, I hadn't thought of jammers myself until JTH mentioned them), but no, I don't think shield boosters work. However, you should be able to boost AI ships shield power in some resources by a certain percentage.

Alright. I'm working on a plug that adds ship variants to the EVC port (and possibly some missions and new worlds--but first things first). Unlike the variants in the stock scenario of Nova, where ships have extra shielding, as well as extra space, I was hoping to use the shield boosters and capacitors to upgrade the ships, as if the AI pilots had added things to the stock ships. My hope was that they would be modifications that, if the player captured the ship, they could sell what they wanted to, in case they wanted to sacrifice the shielding for weaponry. I can always just adjust the shielding amount in the shďp resource, as well as the space amount, making up an excuse about hard-wired capacitors that aren't removable, but I was still hoping th ship could be fully customizable.

This post has been edited by erikthered : 30 July 2008 - 12:13 PM

You could still do that. Just give the ship both the outfits and increased stats. Then add some invisible, weightless outfits that cannot be removed that negate the additions to the actual ship resource. This way the player has the same stats as the variant, but can still remove the outfits to return to the base variant.

OnCapture is evaluated even if the player takes the ship as an escort, right? If not it would make a much simpler way.

@joshtigerheart, on Jul 30 2008, 02:16 PM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

You could still do that. Just give the ship both the outfits and increased stats. Then add some invisible, weightless outfits that cannot be removed that negate the additions to the actual ship resource. This way the player has the same stats as the variant, but can still remove the outfits to return to the base variant.

Hmm, I'm not quite sure I follow.

Basically, I'm trying to do this: StockShip has X shields. StockShip Modified has X shields (since it's based on the primary version), plus ShieldOutfit that grants Y shields, thus making the total shields for StockShip Modified X+Y. I'd like to have it so that you could strip down StockShip Modified to the base variant by selling ShieldOutfit, since the modifications would pretty much be aftermarket (I haven't decided as to whether or not I will make variants available for purchase, or if I'll just look at them as other pilots ships that have been purchased and outfitted).

@erikthered, on Jul 30 2008, 01:47 PM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

Hmm, I'm not quite sure I follow.

Basically, I'm trying to do this: StockShip has X shields. StockShip Modified has X shields (since it's based on the primary version), plus ShieldOutfit that grants Y shields, thus making the total shields for StockShip Modified X+Y. I'd like to have it so that you could strip down StockShip Modified to the base variant by selling ShieldOutfit, since the modifications would pretty much be aftermarket (I haven't decided as to whether or not I will make variants available for purchase, or if I'll just look at them as other pilots ships that have been purchased and outfitted).

StockShip has X Shields.
StockShip Modified has X+Y Shields plus an outfit that grants -Y shields plus an outfit that grants +Y shields. The negative outfit is invisible. Alternatively, you could use a number of smaller mods so you could sell off the shield increases is
Pro: Easily expanded to cover a lot of ships with such variants.
Con: More complex than it needs to be.
Alternatively, you could create a dummy outfit only used for this ship, and put a mission bit ship change (Cxxx in this case) in the on-sell field.
Pro: This would probably be much easier, and the player probably wouldn't even notice.
Con: This is not as flexible if you're going to use many ships, as you may end up with a lot of dummy outfits.

@nonconventionally-creative, on Jul 30 2008, 05:28 PM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

StockShip has X Shields.
StockShip Modified has X+Y Shields plus an outfit that grants -Y shields plus an outfit that grants +Y shields. The negative outfit is invisible. Alternatively, you could use a number of smaller mods so you could sell off the shield increases is
Pro: Easily expanded to cover a lot of ships with such variants.
Con: More complex than it needs to be.
Alternatively, you could create a dummy outfit only used for this ship, and put a mission bit ship change (Cxxx in this case) in the on-sell field.
Pro: This would probably be much easier, and the player probably wouldn't even notice.
Con: This is not as flexible if you're going to use many ships, as you may end up with a lot of dummy outfits.

So, basically, something like a reverse shield capacitor that's invisible? How would one make it invisible? Also, is everyone absolutely certain that outfits like shield upgrades and mass expansions don't affect AI? If so, that might be something to incorporate into the newest release...

Yes, positive, and no, it's not something to incorporate in EV Nova 1.1. (This update is primarily to allow Nova to work on newer Macs with funny graphics cards but may also be fixing a few other issues. It will not have any new engine or scenario features.)

You make an outfit invisible by leaving the buyrandom at 0 and the name fields blank.

This post has been edited by Guy : 30 July 2008 - 06:08 PM

Also, use the "Can't be sold" flag.

How do I deal with masses for anti-outfits? For instance, I want an anti-cargo pod, so I can put a cargo pod on some ships, even though the AI won't use them. For example:

StockShip has 30 space and 30 cargo. In order to outfit StockShip Freighter Variant, I want to give it "cargo pods." A cargo pod would give StockShip 10/40. However, since AI don't use cargo pods, I have to make StockShip have 10/40, plus an anti-cargo pod of -20/-10 and a cargo pod of 20/10. Is that correct?

@erikthered, on Jul 30 2008, 09:16 PM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

How do I deal with masses for anti-outfits? For instance, I want an anti-cargo pod, so I can put a cargo pod on some ships, even though the AI won't use them. For example:

StockShip has 30 space and 30 cargo. In order to outfit StockShip Freighter Variant, I want to give it "cargo pods." A cargo pod would give StockShip 10/40. However, since AI don't use cargo pods, I have to make StockShip have 10/40, plus an anti-cargo pod of -20/-10 and a cargo pod of 20/10. Is that correct?

That would work, in this case it's best to not allow it, since the a Freighter's basic structure != a Warship's. Also you need to watch out for escort AIs.

I can only imagine this is solely for the sake of the potential quantity of cargo you can plunder from this ship when you board it. If not, just take the original ship, give it a cargo pod and leave it at that.

This post has been edited by Guy : 31 July 2008 - 02:20 AM

@guy, on Jul 31 2008, 03:19 AM, said in Shďp Use Of Outfits:

I can only imagine this is solely for the sake of the potential quantity of cargo you can plunder from this ship when you board it. If not, just take the original ship, give it a cargo pod and leave it at that.

Hmm, that's a good point. However, how would this work for mass expansions? If StockShip has 30 space/30 cargo, and I give it a mass expansion, it should have 40/15. If I give the ship 40 tons of weapons, even though to the AI the ship just has 30/30, would you still have 40/15 tons of space when you capture/buy the ship? Would I have to worry about StockShip Variant carrying 30 tons of cargo even though it should technically only be able to carry 15?

This post has been edited by erikthered : 31 July 2008 - 09:14 AM

"Free mass" is just the mass left over. Ships automatically get the exact amount of space they have in included weapons and outfits on top of that when stripped.

Remember, outfits can have up to four mods. So you can just make invisible, reverse Mass Expansions and Cargo Pods. Or in that case, you can just set the actual free space and cargo to the values, since the player can't sell those two anyways.