Modding SW3?

Ah, no wonder they're in there... leftover stuff from SW2 eh? Also saw the cargo expansion slots in the modules file. I suppose that way is more realistic but not being able to buy something because "your backpack is full" is frustrating

I need to finalize the pricing on the LS Master Spark but otherwise it's done. I hope the AI uses it against me. Hmm... it would go well with Nanaki's Random Contacts, a wing of missile ships protecting a fleet will be extremely formidable.

Edit:
I wonder what happens when the mission script tries to access a dead pilot? You know how on occasion someone (Viper, Aja) says "wait here while I go investigate something", and that pilot leaves your team temporarily? Yeah... I wonder what happens if that pilot is dead...

Edit:
As promised, here are the details of missile editing. Please note I've only scratched the surface, there are many things I still don't understand.

(1) \Data\LocData\English\m_modules.loc
- Descriptions are in here. Each item has 4 lines @ entries: name, hint, sdesc, ldesc - the displayed name, the mouseover hint, short description, long description. By the way, the long descriptions of the AMS contain typos. I'm sure everyone has noticed they all have the same effectiveness (10). Only the description is wrong though, their data is actually fine (not all of them equals 10).

(2) \Data\Game\Modules.xml
- Base item definitions are in here. For missiles, HomingRocket and MIRVModule differentiate which display template in the shop to use. I simply renamed LRM1's tags from HomingRocket to MIRVModule. The entries are very straightforward to understand and I'll skip them (appearance, price, how many missiles per pack), but look at the last entries. It's a nested RocketParams section. This determines what missile to launch (rocket_name), it's effectiveness (seeker_name), and how it explodes (detonator_name). These 3 are defined in the next file.

(3) \Data\Game\Rockets.xml
- The dirty details of rockets are all in here. From the previous file, rocket_name references a RocketCarcass block. This is basically how the missile looks like and how it flies.
- We're most interested in this part, how it explodes. This would be the detonator_name entry. Normal missiles use DistanceDetonator tags, but we need to change it to the MIRV-type. Otherwise our missile will simply launch and then explode. Normal missiles have 3 entries only, time_to_live, damage, and explosion_distance. For MIRV type we add a lot more info. Missile_count determines how many warheads it splits into (yay!), and then we have another RocketParams section. Basically this means the MIRV "explodes" into other rockets. It's got the same 3 entries as the parent definition: rocket_name, seeker_name, and detonator_name.
- This rocket_name is for each warhead's appearance. It's just another RocketCarcass block. For my custom one I simply recycled the existing MIRV warhead info.
- Again, seeker name determines how good it is against countermeasures.
- Finally we define how the warheads actually explode, with detonator_name. This time we use DistanceDetonator tags just like for regular missiles. This section simply time_to_live, damage, and explosion distance.

I don't quite understand many values such as time_to_live, seeking_time, viewing_angle, etc. More testing needed but for now we have the basics of missile editing covered.

[Goblin Wizard]

Originally Posted by Trucidation

I wonder what happens when the mission script tries to access a dead pilot? You know how on occasion someone (Viper, Aja) says "wait here while I go investigate something", and that pilot leaves your team temporarily? Yeah... I wonder what happens if that pilot is dead...

First you need to define "dead". If you see pilot in your pilots list (in red or other), he is not dead for the engine.
Second, it depends on what you want to do with "dead" pilot. Even totally dead pilot still can speak (no problems with dialogs). Every mission file has a function "StartInitMis" which creates pilots for different purposes. It works independently from real life of the pilot.
Even functions that work with pilots in space have many ifs so I suppose you won't encounter errors too often.

Originally Posted by Trucidation

I don't quite understand many values such as time_to_live, seeking_time, viewing_angle, etc. More testing needed but for now we have the basics of missile editing covered.

time_to_live - time of missile flight in seconds
seeking_time - how long the missile will be searching for the target if he misses or the target will be destroyed before missile hit. I'm not 100% sure about this.
viewing_angle - missile luncher, gun barrel maximum deviation from the "firing forward" position (I'm sure there are better words in english to explain this but..).

Thanks!

I see... as long as we have the pilot, script will simply spawn instance when it takes control. Interesting. Probably will make pilot not-dead when he returns to team?

I understood your explanation on the values too, thanks. Maybe we can say "viewing_angle" is maximum rotation angle of launcher. Hmm, does this mean wider angle = can fire to the side if angle is wide enough? There's some other things I need to look at as well when I get home from work today.

Edit:
\Data\Game\ShipDescriptions.xml
This appears to list what ships carry what items. So ships can't have randomized equipment? Aww. Also, how do we tell which ships are available in what game difficulty (easy, normal, hard)?

I was thinking of revamping the long range missiles - they suffer from the ship not equipping radar so their range is crippled (e.g. LRM2 range = 450, but most ships' sensor default = 135). Players can also abuse this fact because ships which get hit by damage outside of their sensor range don't respond, e.g. you can rain LRMs on the alien fleet in the Dionysus Sphere but they will just sit there and let you massacre them -.-" You can also break a script by torpedoing the target and destroying it when you're supposed to reach it first and have some dialog before attacking it (I learned that the hard way in Vulcan, lol).

There's also 2 apparently unused missiles, LRM2_GK and T3_GK. The GK tag makes it sound like a turret @ mothership item, but since missiles don't work with mothership I guess they were simply left out. I also wonder why the game isn't complaining that LRM2_GK is duplicating LRM2, and T3_GK is duplicating T3. Heck, there's T1_unguided versus T1, as well as T2_unguided versus T2.

[Goblin Wizard]

Originally Posted by Trucidation

Probably will make pilot not-dead when he returns to team?

How it works - When pilot leaves you his stats are saved and he is killed. When he returns new pilot is created and saved stats are loaded into new pilot.

Originally Posted by Trucidation

Hmm, does this mean wider angle = can fire to the side if angle is wide enough?

Exactly!

Originally Posted by Trucidation

Edit:
\Data\Game\ShipDescriptions.xml
This appears to list what ships carry what items. So ships can't have randomized equipment?

It's possible but game uses few diffrent setups and pilots.

Originally Posted by Trucidation

Aww. Also, how do we tell which ships are available in what game difficulty (easy, normal, hard)?

"if (GetLevelDifficult()==EASY) then..." function like this checks difficulty level. Look into Create_flight_2.script.

Originally Posted by Trucidation

I was thinking of revamping the long range missiles - they suffer from the ship not equipping radar so their range is crippled (e.g. LRM2 range = 450, but most ships' sensor default = 135).

As you know missiles have even @600 clicks range. It's far beyond best radar scan range. For those you should use a scout. If scout is equipped with good radar and/or cloaking device you can snipe out whole fleets (e.g. with torpedoes).

Yeah, it does make sense to just check when creating a flight. If the ships' difficulty was hardcoded (e.g. ship X = easy difficulty) then they would have to duplicate that ship for the other difficulties as well.

I'm not a fan of sniping (too impatient to wait), but I think torpedoes are ok. They're expensive and hard to collect many so it's no problem if they have long range. I'll still be replacing LRMs though, I'm not sure if many people use them. I think I can write a better explanation on making missiles instead of just changing existing entries and I've started modding the explosions as well. Mainly the colour - it feels more fun with different coloured explosions from different missiles

Edit:
...and heeere we go! I finished editing the missiles, did everything in one shot, haha. Should be no problems, it was mostly a copypasta job with only a bit of editing. I modded all the LRMs into short range cluster missiles (range 150). Screenie #1, AI is using the new missiles just fine. Screenie #2, love the devs, changing the explosion flare colours is a simple matter of editing RGB values in a script.

Gimme a while to put together all the files I modded.

[sidius]

Hello, I'm kinda new to this, but I've managed to remake couple of things (I'm familiar with Carcasses, ShipDescriptions, Modules etc.), I've added Liger (thx very much for that) - replaced 2 system modules with TurretGK ones, made new destriptions for them but when I try to add them to the stations, my game crashes every time I dock with station. so I'm doing something wrong.

__All_guns ={"HC1","HC2","HC3","HC4",
"VC1","VC2","VC3","VC4",
"LC1","LC2","LC3","LC4",
"PLC1","PLC2","PLC3",
"PC1","PC2","PC3",
"RG1","RG2","RG3",
"THC1","THC2","THC3","THC4","THGK1",
"TVC1","TVC2","TVC3","TVC4",
"TLC1","TLC2","TLC3","TLC4","TLGK1",
"TPLC1","TPLC2","TPLC3",
"TPC1","TPC2","TPC3","TPGK1",
"TRG1","TRG2","TRG3","TRGK1",
"CG1","CG2","CG3","CG4",
etc etc etc..

Question1: Should I add them to one of those ShopModules ={....}; too?

I've added some numbers to the same lines in InitTradeSystem.script:
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, -- THC,TVC
to
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, -- THC,TVC

0,0,0,0,0,0,0, -- TLC,TPLC
to
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, -- TLC,TPLC

0,0,0,0,0,0, -- TPC,TRG
to
0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, -- TPC,TRG

those are lines from local NShop_fish - but I've added them to all other shops too

I don't know if I'm doing it right, adding them to the same existing weapon type (plasma to plasma turrets etc), but I don't know what would actually completely new line do..

Btw those turrets are working when I add them to InitTeamScript, but it's no fun to add things this way.

Question2: Is it possible to add Tractor Beam to fighters? I've added one to my custom Stormcrow (otherwise it has just 1 more system slot and better stats - I gave it to Patrol teams too, instead of their Stormcrow_mk2_pat0) but it doesn't work, maybe I just need to add some [X,Y,Z] outside of the fighter, not 0,0,0 as I used . It may be restricted by the game.. dunno

I really like patrol colors and emblem, too bad they don't have any Lion cruiser, I would steal that texture for Liger . I am really lame in graphic editors, so I can't make new one

and thanks for all info about modifying, btw it would be nice to post here IMD, INI, texture and carcass files of those great newest fighters of SW2, I'd like to fly that cool shark-like fighter, but now I don't even remember it's name (I got SW2 borrowed from a friend some 3 years ago)

Can't really help you here as I'm digging around a completely different set of scripts, but when the game crashes you might find some useful info in LOGfile.txt. There's also a ScriptErrors.log but I've never actually seen it contain anything.

Didn't buy or get to play SW2 but iirc Goblin Wizard added 4 ships from there into this mod. They're okay but kinda skimpy on the system side Good luck!

[epicfatman]

hello all

havin a little trouble with InitTradeSystem:

basically, i edit the values with notepad then save to desktop then replace old with new via drag and drop. i did open FloodTradeStations, but just for references, the actual code made the glaze on my eyes glaze over.

now, i only changed the ships for the SI shop ( to see what value is what ship ), but yet randomization has stopped and any missiles present on the station reaches ludicrous levels and beyond (IE: 1st trade with station, all is fine. 2nd its something like 123000000, 3rd its 2460000000 etc.), my missiles have been modded for a higher count ( basically added a 0 to the ammo count (so a dumbfire is now 160 instead of 16) )

where does the problem lie?

EDIT: woops, ignore this folks jumped the gun. apparently placid station gets abit wonky if you try to trade with it more than once before you leave the system. all is good.