A problem in afterthought

Okay small backround, player is in Renegade storyline in a 'small' TC I'm doing. Player needs to go rescue 'Manhattan' a buddy of a buddy. I plan on having the player having to be teleported to a maze of systems jumps overlapping (possibly some switching out) facing other prisoners in a horrible ship given by the mission (don't worry they have the same) and land on dead dreary planets boarding ships and finding Manhattan and finally trying to get back. In an afterthought I realized I encountered two problems.

1. Is there any way I can force the player to give away all his escorts, I could make the player give them up by putting a bit on the 'on capture' box in order to complete the storyline, but I'd prefer to have them disappear (completely) via use of a mission. Is this possible?

2. I am concerned about the escape pod. When you die you go to system 128 which is occupied by a lone hypergate. that leads to spob 129 (another hypergate) I was thinking I could deactivate the system that spob 129 was in and in turn the only other destination is back to the brig. Will this work? Or is there a way that I can change the syst where the Escape Pod shows up.

1. As far as I know, there is no way to restrict the player's use of escorts via bits. Even "on capture" doesn't work both because it fires regardless of whether the player uses the ship as his/her own or as an escort, and because releasing an escort doesn't clear it (so it would be stuck on indefinitely, unless you had an arbitrary clear later).

2. I hate how Nova handles escape pods. If my hypothetical TC ever hits the web, it will have neither escape pods nor strict play (I'm pretty sure that can be done). If you want to avoid pod issues like that one, I suggest you think about doing the same. Other than that, I don't have any suggestions. Sorry.

1. Kill all the player's escorts. Since you're already forcing the player into a ship, do it twice. First force into a ship with ridiculously high armor, then transport to a system where a weapon with huge blast radius explodes dealing enough shield-bypassing damage to kill all escorts, then transport to the prison system and force into the prison ship. To make this work you'll probably want a couple of always-there përs ships that fight each other using the shield-bypassing blast.

May as well have this operate through a mission with the goal to kill a certain ship that will also be killed by the blast. I don't remember if OnShipDone triggers when the ship first dies or finishes exploding, but a death delay of 2 will be unnoticeable. OnShipDone you know the escorts have been slain. The mission can be aborted, the player's ship changed, and the player transported.

You can even do some nifty graphical things in the death system. The player's super-armor-ship can be invisible. Stars can be blanked out with a white background. If you don't remove the player instantly, a "movie" can be shown by having a ship with Extra Frames Shown In Sequence in the same place as the player, such as on top of spöb 1. This could even be an image of scrolling text as in the Star Wars opening. And of course the shield-bypassing weapon can have whatever sound you want, such as reading text or playing music, or be silent.

2. Are you sure death takes you to sÿst 128? I know that was the case in EVO, but I seem to recall it changed in EVN.

Archon: I'm not sure you can disable the option to choose strict play. You can make a scenario where a strict-play pilot is killed as soon as the player enters the ship though, and display a message if you want. That accomplishes the same thing. I'm more a fan of letting them live, but flagging non-strict play pilots so they can be given outfits that remove the top speed advantage they have. Certainly you can leave out escape pods though.

This post has been edited by Qaanol : 28 December 2009 - 02:08 PM

One possibility for the escape pod is to remove the escape pod, and replace it with a fighter bay and one fighter which is the escape pod. Just give it insane recharge and speed, but don't give it any weapons. Then you can setup a cron which checks the current system/mission to see where to relocate the player.

QUOTE

2. Are you sure death takes you to sÿst 128? I know that was the case in EVO, but I seem to recall it changed in EVN.

You can change it in the char files, I chose 128 since the player didn't actually start in the galaxy but rather getting transported to it he is doomed to start in the same system no matter what.

QUOTE

One possibility for the escape pod is to remove the escape pod, and replace it with a fighter bay and one fighter which is the escape pod.

This idea would fix a lot of problems I find with the escape pod and I have juggled with the idea before, unfortunately there is no way to 'hide' the weapon, yes I suppose you could make it 2ndary weapon, but accidentally launching your pod into a barrage of incoming bulletfire when your about to die while reaching for a missile never went over so well.

I have decided to drop the experiment. While yes there will still be a prison station and a mess of jumps and a hidden hypergate. It will no longer be a Colosseum type section of the game. I believe your escorts will be seen as 'accomplices' and be thrown into the prison sector as well. While yes Qaanol's idea will probably work, I didn't want the escorts destroyed I more so wanted them removed, to disappear if you will. Never-the-less I want to thank you all for helping despite that it cannot be done.

Happy huntin' :hector_bird:

You don't need to have the launcher for an escape ship to work. Then the weapon isn't on your ship and you can't select it.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ Dec 28 2009, 11:01 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

, but flagging non-strict play pilots so they can be given outfits that remove the top speed advantage they have. Certainly you can leave out escape pods though.

There is a speed advantage? I've never heard of this. I think i've peripherally noticed it in gameplay but didn't pay much attention to it. How fast is the player's ship in non-strict vs strict play - 110%, 90%? Are there any other differences not mentioned in any of the documentation?

As far as I know it's not in the documentation, but it's pretty well established that the player ship has a 30% boost to all its speed stats when not playing on strict play. Most TCs just boost all the governments' skill by 30% to compensate.

hmm. Just tested it. It also seems like various hostiles also have fewer weapons count or at least fire slower and perhaps have less ammo. All these things might be worth mentioning in the documentation.

I've also observed that ai ships seem to be something like 10% faster than they should be in relation to the player when playing on strict - even if their ship skill is 0 and their govt skill is normal (100).

What was that I heard about the 'OnCapture' field being triggered regardless of whether or not the player keeps the ship as his/her own or if the player assigns it as an escort? Is this true? Or is the 'OnPurchase' field triggered when the player keeps the ship and the 'OnCapture' field triggered when the ship is made an escort?

QUOTE (Skylark @ Jan 16 2010, 05:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There is a speed advantage? I've never heard of this. I think i've peripherally noticed it in gameplay but didn't pay much attention to it. How fast is the player's ship in non-strict vs strict play - 110%, 90%? Are there any other differences not mentioned in any of the documentation?

I believe there is a 50% bonus to top speed for non-strict play pilots.

QUOTE (darthkev @ Jan 16 2010, 07:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What was that I heard about the 'OnCapture' field being triggered regardless of whether or not the player keeps the ship as his/her own or if the player assigns it as an escort? Is this true? Or is the 'OnPurchase' field triggered when the player keeps the ship and the 'OnCapture' field triggered when the ship is made an escort?

I don't know what it was that you heard. However, the OnCapture field and no other field is evaluated when the player captures a ship, regardless of whether it is kept as an escort or used to replace the player's current ship.

Damn, that's going to hurt my TC severely. What about when you change the player's ship with a bit? Is the 'OnPurchase' field for the ship the player is switched to triggered? If not, I'm going to have to rework many of the weapons in my TC. Ouch.

QUOTE (Qaanol @ Jan 17 2010, 12:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I believe there is a 50% bonus to top speed for non-strict play pilots.

Not positive on this, but I'm pretty sure it's actually 30% to all speed-related stats. Don't (quote) me on that though.