the shield ideas have been done by evolutions, in a way, but i like your ideas. Unfortunatly, i believe some of that is hard-coded. Not all of it, but some of it.

Ack... 'Least not all of it is hard coded... It'd help to get some pointers on how to do it though. I have no clue where to start :S...

well how ab- *falls asleep out of pure exaustion*

the drag is the only one thats 'hard' coded,being a property of the individual shiparch - all ships have a linear drag of 1 by default but theres no reason not to make some ships higher

Ok that's not too bad. I'll just leave those out then. No real biggy. Thx!

OK I've been thinking about coding all of this and I need a check on what I've come up with plz!


(This is an example of what I would think an engine upgrade would look like)
[engine
nickname = engine_upgrade01
ids_name = 263948 (Just chose some random number for right now)
ids_info = 264948 (Same as above... Random number)
volume = 0.000000
mass = 10
max_force = 62000
linear_drag = 599
power_usage = 0
reverse_fraction = 0.200000
flame_effect = gf_no_largeengine01
cruise_charge_time = 6
cruise_power_usage = 20
rumble_sound = rumble_nomad
rumble_atten_range = -5, 0
rumble_pitch_range = -25, 25
cruise_start_sound = engine_no_cruise_start
cruise_loop_sound = engine_no_cruise_loop
cruise_stop_sound = engine_no_cruise_stop
indestructible = false
outside_cone_attenuation = -3
inside_sound_cone = 90
outside_sound_cone = 270

Is that basically what it should look like? Or am I so far off, there's no word to describe how wrong I am?

Well... I guess I'm on my own when it comes to the coding of the engine upgrades... Anyway, I am wondering if this is possible...

I've been thinking about this one engine upgrade that's "experimental"...
The description of the thing tells you what it's supposed to do, yet of course, because it's never really been tested before, it never does what the description says. One odd aspect I was thinking about was this.

Every experimental upgrade will be different. (In other words, if there are upgrades sold at Manhattan, New Berlin, New Tokyo, and Leeds, all of those upgrades will be different... The description may "say" that they are all supposed to increase your engine speed to 200, but they never do. So The New Berlin upgrade will only increase your speed to 100, and the New Tokyo upgrade only increases your cruise time, and the Manhattan upgrade has a cruise time that's sooooo long, it seems as though your ship will never hit cruise, and the Leeds upgrade increases your ship speed to 300, but your cruise charge time is infinite)
Well, anyways, the faction that makes these upgrades tends to release them too early. So one upgrade will be very deadly. When you increase or decrease the speed of your ship, your ship suddenly flies out of control. It automatically propels the ship to a speed of 1500. Once your ship hits that speed, the ship is destroyed. You explode as the upgrade self-destructs. Is this possible? I thought it would be kind of funny.

Also, with the experimental engine upgrades...
There are 2 upgrades in particular... The MIS Upgrade (Maximum In-Flight Speed Upgrade) and the CCT Upgrade (Cruise Charge Time Upgrade). The MIS Upgrade increases the speed of your ship, but also increases the charge time of your ship since power is re-directed from the cruise engines to your main engines.

The CCT Upgrade decreases the charge time of your cruise engines, but also decreases your ship's top speed since power is re-directed from the MIS engines to your cruise engines. (MIS engines being your main engines)

There are experimental MIS and CCT engine upgrades...
The question I have deals with both...
Could I drain power from, for say, your ship's power (What your guns opperate on... The yellow bar). When I say this I mean, lets say your ship's power output is 10400. The upgrade would increase the speed of your engine, but instead of increasing CCT, it would decrease your maximum power output. So now instead of having 10400, you would have 6400. It'd be some sort of percentage.. Like it would decrease you power by 15% or something... So now you fly alot faster, but you can't shoot your guns for as long as you used to be able to do. Can I do this? If so, how do I? I know there are 2 types of devices... [engine and [power... But can I combine the two to acomplish what I've explained above? Sheesh I hope you guys get what I'm saying here... Plz respond guys... I'm left out in the open here... Do I need to simplify what I'm asking for???

Edited by - rower_of_death on 8/21/2005 8:20:14 PM

erm, that post is too long for me to understand, because you have about 20 questions in there. Experimental is possible, because you can just create different equipments that have the same infocards. As for the rest... i dunno.

Edited by - Blackhole2001 on 8/21/2005 8:38:08 PM

Please see how I handled Power Upgrades in the XML Toolkit, 1.2, to see example code dealing with upgrades. Also, see the custom Power Supplies, etc., and their relevant XML/INI coding in the ship add-on files included with the mod, for practical examples of how to look at these issues.

Last but not least, while ships should have a non-zero value for their Linear_Drag entries (otherwise they behave very poorly under certain conditions), you have considerable room to operate, because it's the ratio between Linear_Drag and Max_Thrust in the Engine entry that makes the big difference in terms of top speed, and the ratio between Linear_Drag (shiparch) and Mass (shiparch) that makes the big difference in terms of acceleration behaviors. Bear in mind that changing Mass/drag ratios will have a big impact on overall handling, however. See Dev's article about FL Physics (or my follow-on article, which explains all of this in greater detail, and includes some very helpful illustrations that explain the FL physics system).

Alright thx alot! That's what I was looking for! I really apreciate it!

Cools! I finally made everything I wanted to make upgrade wise! Thx again for all of your guyses help tips!