hmm, interesting thread, keep it coming guys.
(i have absolutely no time to try this - all theory)

from killablesolars.ini:

[KillableSolar
nickname = rm_l_dreadnought_li_D23-D23
solar_type = Big_Solar
string_id = 5
faction = li_n_grp
archetype = rm_l_dreadnought
loadout = rm_l_dreadnought_li_01
hitpoints = 50607, 50607
difficulty = 18.458324, 18.458324
pilot_choices = 1

change the marked line to
difficulty = 0.0, 20.0

and check if a battleship appears in a mission or not (might need a few tries till one comes up).
then check if it fires back.

maybe you just didnt encounter the bases you have changed.
the difficulty settings usualy overlap - i think one is taken from the pool that is eligible for the mission's difficulty.
try to isolate it.
make sure that the one you changed is the ONLY one that is in the range.

maybe change the mission vendor of a base to veryvery high missions only, then take the mission from there.

this stuff has to work or my world of FL modding is broken.
lol


Fjord

Edit:
one important thing would be to track down the place where the types of the ships that are spawned in a mission are defined.
one thing you "could" do is to define capships as fighters... hmmmm... would affect encoutners as well :s


---------------------------------
Excelcia Mod Leading Developer

Edited by - LordFjord on 5/6/2004 12:55:33 AM

Hmmm perhaps i was hallucinating after all! Tested again and a different archetype gave no turrets or fire. So... Tried the suggestion to make Big_Solar into Defensive_Solar and tried again...

Result = Turrets on group of 3 battlestations turning at me and firing

Gonna try for a few more times tonight before bed but this does seem to have done the trick...

+++ out of cheese error - redo from start +++

"Psycho-ceramics. We are the cracked pots of mankind.
Would you like me to decipher a Rorschach for you?"
- Dean Harding, 'One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest' by
Ken Kesey

OK, not exactly extensive testing but... the solars had turrets and shot at me 3 times in a row which is not bad...

To recap what i've done :
in data\solar\solararch.ini for bases prefixed rm_ :
type = MISSION_SATELLITE changed to type = STATION

in data\randommissions\killablesolars.ini :
solar_type = Big_Solar changed to solar_type = Defensive_Solar

isn't find/replcace wonderful

*edit - unclear wording (as always ) three times = three seperate missions

+++ out of cheese error - redo from start +++

"Psycho-ceramics. We are the cracked pots of mankind.
Would you like me to decipher a Rorschach for you?"
- Dean Harding, 'One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest' by
Ken Kesey

Edited by - Anton on 5/6/2004 3:16:11 PM

The shots fire then pause, fire then pause is due to the pilots stats in pilots_populations.ini file - as it fires in bursts lasting a second or something. Increase firing time, decrease pause time - see if more shots come off. You can also always make the turrets fire faster too...(higher refire rate).

gun_fire_burst_interval_time =

Make that line =6 or something - for long fire periods.

gun_fire_no_burst_interval_time = 1.500000 ; make this line smaller for shorter pause between shooting

Might not do much, if anything, as i haven't seen what happens with this at all - but it might mean more volleys of shots etc. You can adjust their accuracy as well - make em better:
gun_fire_accuracy_cone_angle = 4
Make that a smaller value - like 1

puh, lucky me - me freelancer world is saved.
and ya, give them a decent AI, a very high difficulty class to make the mission pay well + some gun editing - there u go battlestations.

there is one thing what would make this perfect - capships that are NO solars in missions. i have no clue thouh how to do that at the moment.

Fjord

---------------------------------
Excelcia Mod Leading Developer

I take it you mean proper battleships and not those that have the type = fighter instead of type = capital? Same here, as it would be much nicer if you could have proper missions against battleships instead of the 'fooled' ones.

Rebalance, as far as i know, has fooled FL by making some bases and wep platforms into gunboats.

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a message from firebase...

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moving GBs?
or stationary ones?

you can of course easily fake a capship being a fighter in a mission, but i think you would get problems with the numbers. being jumped by several waves of each 4 to 8 battleships isnt nice and not what i want.

the question is:
where does FL decide what ships and how many to spawn?

one approach could be to create a BS faking a fighter, but with a veryvery high difficulty class. lets say 50 for the start.
in the ranktodiffclass file u need to make a new entry for the new diffclasses.
in ranktomoney u set the payment.
in mbases u set the mission diff to the very high values.

-> with a bit luck, you should have a few, and only a few BSs in a mission, flying around and acting as fighters.
the hard part is to find the right rank to diffclass values, i think that sets up the numbers.

lotsa effort, quite some modding work but it would be great to see if this works.
downside of this would be that u would have only BSs in th mission , no fighters.

if anyone can find out where the classes of the spawned ships are defined for the missions, let me know - i fear its hardcoded as "fighter"

Fjord

---------------------------------
Excelcia Mod Leading Developer