Hey Giskard!
What ship are you using on the screenshots?
It's cool.....

The thunderbolt mostly. My favourite ship.

Flys like the starfury a bit but is bigger and tougher and able to handle most things with its lvl 7 weapons.

Not the best ship for every task though.

Giskard

And where can i download it?

Well its in Hostile Universe V8 but i believe its also in FL TNG and perhaps the Reballance mod. Also the B5 mod had my permission very early on to use my ships so it might be in that mod too.

Or a version of it as the source model was made available online on my site.

Lancers has most of those mods in its download area.

Giskard

Fixed the bugs reported by Glock.

Ringworld V2 has been fired off to Lancers Reactor for inclusion in their downloads area.

If you have modified your version already then all you need to do is this.

Fixes in Version 2

Planet entries starting with "nickname = rw01_01a" & "nickname = rw01_01b" pointed to a base in the Newmars system which was not included with this addon. Version 2 removes the base = lines from both those planets. If your using Ringworld in your own mod, you can manually remove those entries your self by searching for the parts in quotes above.

I forgot to name the ini that needs modifying in the readme doc. The ini in rw01.ini.

Sorry about that.

Giskard

Giskard, I have been having a lot of trouble editing the encounters (different ships, amount of ships, type of ship used, etc). I still am confused about how to do such things even after reading the installation file multiple times (customizing RW). One thing I have been having a lot of trouble with is how to find out where each zone(eg zone_pop_rw01_east) is where in the system (Ringworld) and how to control the number of ships in an encounter among multiple other things mentioned later. Some other things I am curious about are how are so many different ships in Ringworld if there are only about 5 different types of ships in the [EncounterParameters entry in Rw01.ini in the systems folder. I am also curious about what the 4, 0.080000, and the 1.000000 mean in this following line.

faction = br_p_grp, 1.000000
encounter = area_trade_freighter, 4, 0.080000

And lastly, are the different zones (zone_pop_rw01_west and zone_pop_rw01_sebandits1) each meant to be used for bandits and friendlies? For example, if you were putting in a new faction encounter and you wanted it to be for the Corsairs, would you put the Corsair code in the bandit zones or the friendly zones (like zone_pop_r101_west). Thank you so much for your help in advance and I am sorry if my questions are confusing.

Edited by - photonzach on 20-08-2003 04:40:07

Edited by - photonzach on 20-08-2003 04:53:03

Hello mate

A little background first i think. The encounter scripts use ships that fall into special catagories, such as freighter, fighter, battleship, armoured transport etc etc. These are listed and organised in other ini files that are not included with ringworld because ringworld uses the default settings for those files. Factions are given lists of ships they are allowed to use that are setup in the loadouts.ini and ncpships.ini amongst other things. All this is works behind the scenes when game reads in the encounters from a system.

First it reads the system ini, then the encounter script and then it checks the factionprops.ini file for what ships each listed faction is allowed to use. Once it knows, it spawns the requested type of ship in the zone and gives ownership to th faction that is listed in the zone encounter.

So you see, there are no ships listed in the system file. The choice of ships is made in other ini files outside of the universe folder. Check out the mission folder and the ship folder for the files im talking about here.

Anyway, about your problem.

You must first understand the basic coordinates system to find the zones. This tutorial will help explain most of it. Just scroll down either tutorial until you get to encounters.

System Tutorial

Its a little old and needs updating so here are the updates.

Lets take my RW jumpgate zone (dont use this, its modified for my mod and will probably break yours).

[zone
nickname = zone_pop_rw01_gate
pos = 50000, 0, 0
shape = SPHERE
size = 5000
comment = rwgate
sort = 1
toughness = 50
density = 6
repop_time = 10
max_battle_size = 8
pop_type = br_p_grp, base_cluster_law
relief_time = 10
faction_weight = br_n_grp, 7
faction_weight = br_p_grp, 9
faction_weight = br_p_grp_prisoners, 5
faction_weight = fc_c_grp, 4
faction_weight = co_be_grp, 5
faction_weight = br_m_grp, 6
faction_weight = co_hsp_grp, 4
faction_weight = co_kt_grp, 3
faction_weight = co_me_grp, 6
faction_weight = co_nws_grp, 4
faction_weight = co_os_grp, 6
density_restriction = 4, unlawfuls
encounter = area_defend, 4, 0.100000
faction = br_n_grp, 0.410000
faction = br_p_grp, 0.590000
faction = fc_c_grp, 0.410000
encounter = area_armored_prisoner, 4, 0.020000
faction = br_p_grp, 1.000000
encounter = area_trade_freighter, 4, 0.080000
faction = co_be_grp, 0.290000
faction = br_m_grp, 0.290000
faction = co_nws_grp, 0.290000
faction = gd_im_grp, 0.140000
encounter = area_trade_transport, 4, 0.110000
faction = co_be_grp, 0.110000
faction = br_m_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_hsp_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_kt_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_me_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_nws_grp, 0.110000
encounter = area_trade_armored, 4, 0.030000
faction = co_os_grp, 1.000000
encounter = area_fleet, 10, 1.070000
faction = br_n_grp, 1.000000
faction = fc_c_grp, 1.000000

I'll now break this down even further.

toughness = 50
density = 6
repop_time = 10
max_battle_size = 8
pop_type = br_p_grp, base_cluster_law
relief_time = 10

Toughness = This is level of all the ships allowed in the zone at any one time added together.
Density = not sure about this.
Repop=time = delay between the time it takes for 1 group to vanish and another to spawn in the zone. Usuaully theres an over lap when 3 or 4 groups of ais spawn in and out at different times. So you dont actually see the zone empty.

Max Battle = Limits the number ships involved in a battle in the zone. Not all ships are fighters remember, you get freighters too.

pop_type = this not only setups the method of arrival but it also tells the game who owns the zone so to speak. There are tons of options for thus and not all give the owning factions name.

relief_time = I believe this is delay between one hostile group vanishing and another hostile group appearing. A safe period if you like.

faction_weight = faction, weight

The weight is a number between 0 and 10 that indications how often that faction should appear in the zone. 10 being they live there, 0 meaning they never appear.

encounter = area_trade_freighter, 4, 0.080000
faction = co_be_grp, 0.290000

encounter = script alias, the last 2 numbers are a weight used to tell the game how often this encounter should be run, low numbers usually mean things happen less frequently though. Id guess one limits how many instances are allow to be running at once if the script doesnt specific limit it to once and the other is used to tell the game how often this encounter should be run compared to other encounters in the same zone. If i was to take a stab at which was which, id say 4 was the weight used against other encounters and the 0.08000 was used to set how often the script is run. Im not entirely sure here though.

faction = This the fact that will use the script and its weight. The higher the number the more change they have of appearing when the encounter is excuted.

This encounter is a freight encounter and the script will only spawn freighters as indicated above in my introduction.

The script Alias i mentioned is actually setup at the top if all system ini files. Eg the lines that set the above example up are these.

[EncounterParameters
nickname = area_trade_freighter
filename = missions\encounters\area_trade_freighter.ini

So the game matches the nickname (script alias) to the real script so all you have to do us name the nickname on the "encounter =" line and not the entire path to the script which you may use several times in other zones. Saves on typing basically.

Lets apply the above info to the rest of the encounter.

Here is the parts we are refering too for reference purposes.

encounter = area_defend, 4, 0.100000
faction = br_n_grp, 0.410000
faction = br_p_grp, 0.590000
faction = fc_c_grp, 0.410000
encounter = area_armored_prisoner, 4, 0.020000
faction = br_p_grp, 1.000000
encounter = area_trade_freighter, 4, 0.080000
faction = co_be_grp, 0.290000
faction = br_m_grp, 0.290000
faction = co_nws_grp, 0.290000
faction = gd_im_grp, 0.140000
encounter = area_trade_transport, 4, 0.110000
faction = co_be_grp, 0.110000
faction = br_m_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_hsp_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_kt_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_me_grp, 0.110000
faction = co_nws_grp, 0.110000
encounter = area_trade_armored, 4, 0.030000
faction = co_os_grp, 1.000000
encounter = area_fleet, 10, 1.070000
faction = br_n_grp, 1.000000
faction = fc_c_grp, 1.000000

encounter = area_trade_transport, 4, 0.110000 would run more often than any other script because they all have same weight of 4 but this one runs more often. So the encounters run in the following order or preference.

area_trade_transport
area_fleet
area_defend
area_trade_freighter
area_trade_armored
area_armored_prisoner

Lets look at area_defend and see what factions appear the most. This is order the encounter would put them in based on their weight.

br_p_grp
br_n_grp
fc_c_grp

But Fc_c_grp is limited to 4 in the overall weight listed at the top of the encounter but br_p_grp has a much higher value. So whilst the FC_c_grp would appear. It will only do so if its not appeared too often already.

The Faction Weigth line apples to all encounters you see and the encounters weight applies to just to that encounter. You may notice that the faction weights are all postive figures but the encounter entries for the factions are mostly less than zero. My thinking here is that the encounter entries can never added up to more than the faction weight value. At least that is what I think.

Giskard

Thank you so much for your reply, Giskard, but I am still curious how you control the amount of ships used in a specific encounter. Thanks in advance.

Wanderer said you might be able to help me
Do you know how to make battleship encounters for Server side - and what the clients will need if anything? The reason i ask before i am pointed in the directon of the link to
* TUTORIAL *** Nomad battleship&gunboat&figher encounter. A serverside mod.
in the tutorials section is that this thing seems to ramble on about lots of problems without any adjustments being made to the top of the thread! Does that bad boy work? If you have a little time could you check his post and let me know - as its all hard to follow from here.....lol
p.s - if the server and the clients all had the ordinary encounters mod - would that work or is it necessary to have a 'server' specific mod?

Also - can you set a 'server' up without actually setting a real server up? ie i have a 56k modem connection and aint networked - but need to test out my mods for a server we are going to make!! Can it be done on a 'one' computer server? (ie just on mine!!)

Thanks
Chips

Giskard, Glock seems to be running into some problems assigning random missions for the Citadel in the Ringworld system. I wasn't too sure about this and thought that maybe you could help him since you made the battleship hunting missions. Could you email him and provide him with a bit of help please? Its for the mod that he and i were working on.

Help...Ringworld Instalation

I had foolowed all of the Ringworld addonn v1 instalation but the program allways hang if i try to launching.

Did any body why its happend and please tell me how to solve this problems

Thank's guys

dheawise

Looks like Glock managed to find the problem. Anyway Giskard, i believe you already know about Leonharts and my plan to create a system where both of our fleets will square off. I was wondering if you'd like to participate in the system creation and custom encounters. Could you please email me if your interested?

PhotoNzarch:

The real way of controlling how many ships appear is actually via the encounter scripts them selves. But you see the toughness line in the zones for the systems. Well the number of ships in an encounter never exceed the toughness of the zone. So if you set the toughness to 20 then 4 level 5 ships could spawn. If you set it to 50 then thats a lot of ships but the chances are the script would simply spawn all the ships it needed and ignore the excess. Usually the scripts spawn 4 ships tops.

Also theres other ways to control how many ships can appear inside the zone entry for your system file. So you have several ways to ballance it.

However, just increasing the toughness not only allows better AI's to spawn but it can also spawn lots of lower AI's too. This is why you do not just get lvl10 AI's in a Lvl10 zone, you can lvl 8 and even lower too.

Giskard

dheawise: I believe your the man with no name who emailed me.
You should be ok with the info i sent you.

Wanderer: About Glock, dont worry, I emailed him about it too. He is sorted now. He just didnt know about the mbase problem caused by biniq.