Weapons on Custom OPT files

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Weapons on Custom OPT files

jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Wed Apr 01, 2020 6:44 am

Coming back to try out the latest DSUCP upgrade, and of course I must tinker with the game. :D

Trying to get a couple of custom ships working in game, but the resources themselves are fairly scanty, resulting in problems.

Case in point: I have an old Macross Valkyrie OPT file from ancient times. Like most old web pages for this game, the site I found it on has been a dead link for ages. The problem is that it's just the OPT, no ship file, cockpit, .dat files or anything else. Same issue for some old BSG OPTs I have.

So I can use a slot with MXvTED to create the fighter and stat it up using a similar fighter as a template, then write and save it as a .shp file to match the OPT, but weapons remain a problem. No matter where I try to set the weapons in the weaponry tab, it goes awry. In game, regardless of which weapon is selected, when you pull the trigger it starts shooting off warheads and lasers at the same time, or different colored lasers simultaneously, and the weapons don't match the desired settings. I suspect it has something to do with the hardpoints on the model, but I'm not sure.

I haven't been able to find a tutorial that I can make sense of for binhexedit, if using that is the solution. Most of my expertise modding the game comes from being a whiz with AlliED and mission creation- I know ZERO about OPT creation / editing, and the only way I know how to alter ship's stats in game is via MXvTED. I've just started playing with the .ini files a bit as well, but I'm still pretty clueless as to what you can do with those other than add Slam to any craft you want, and maybe change laser color based on the latest upgrade.

So the question is: how can I get those weapon slots / hardpoints or whatever under control, so that if I want a fighter that ONLY has 2-4 standard, linkable lasers and no warheads, that's what I get in game? :?

Thanks.

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Vince T
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Post by Vince T » Wed Apr 01, 2020 7:31 am

Can you post a screenshot from the weapons tab?
Also have you made sure the ship type is set to starfighter?
You may also want to check, if the weapons tab uses the same weapon types as the opt (Reb vs. Imp) if you check the OPT tab you can select the meshes and see what and how many hardpoints are defined.
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jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Wed Apr 01, 2020 4:52 pm

Okay, your reply may have given me a much needed clue.

I'm on the MXvTED OPT page now and have just discovered the OPT information section, which I've never messed with before. Now I'm finding hardpoints by cycling through the mesh sections, and re-writing them to the specfic weapons that I want, in this case RebelLaser. I'll check back here and report on progress, or with more questions, depending on how it works.

Domo Arigato!
Last edited by jmarso on Wed Apr 01, 2020 5:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.

jmarso
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Post by jmarso » Wed Apr 01, 2020 5:10 pm

Okay, that seems to be working. One other gotcha: You have to make sure in AlliED that the flight group doesn't have torpedoes- turns out that was causing part of the problem too.

EDIT: Got it figured out. You're a lifesaver!

Thanks.

Next question: if you don't specify a cockpit OPT, it normally goes to a 'default' cockpit. In some cases, however, you just get no cockpit. Any idea why that is?

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Post by Bman » Thu Apr 02, 2020 12:23 am

Shiplist.txt file. For each model, if it says "Flyable" or "GunnerFlyable"-- for models with a gunnerwell like the Falcon et al, then the game allows you fly the craft listed, at least in Skirmish mode. Unknown means it won't showup in library until after you encounter it during a mission like the TIE experimentals attacking the Liberty CRS.
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Post by jmarso » Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:06 pm

Couple more general questions if anyone wants to play:

1. Is there a limit to how many of one type of weapon can be linked together? For example, if I want to put 5 or six hard points on an OPT to make a gatling-style arrangement when it is fired, can I link 5 rebellasers in MXvTED, or does it have to be an even number like 4 or 6, and is there any limit?

2. Is there a way to change the firing rate of rebel and imperial lasers? What if I wanted them to discharge twice as fast as they do at the default setting? Where and how can you change that?

Thanks in advance for anyone sharing their voodoo!

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Post by Vince T » Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:36 pm

1) No, doesn't have to be an even number -> B-Wing. Also, my old Dhilani Octopus had 8 laser hardpoints, which you could link.
octopus4.jpg
I think there is or was a limit for forward guns on a transport, which is or was 6.

2) That one bumped in and out of my head many, many times. As of now the rate of fire is fixed. However, there are some cases, usually with errors in the craft setup where you have sort of a rapid-fire barage coming from the center of the ship, so I'm guessing there may be a way to influence the RoF - or so I hope.
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Post by Bman » Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:44 am

GT, curious... with those 8 laser hardpoints were you able to get the laser energy-power bars to display or even show up correctly in the cockpit ?
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Post by Vince T » Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:25 am

No, at least not on that old install. You see the 8 laser markers around the reticle but that's it.
I have a BluePhantomProject XWA game folder but that's still at a state of 2010ish, hailing from a pre-hook era.
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Post by Darksaber » Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:54 am

I doubt you'll ever get any more than 4 laser and 4 ion power bars displaying at any one time
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Post by Bman » Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:57 pm

I think you're right mate. Unless there's a way to hook the function to display the bars per laser hardpoints, and not just for slots 280/281 and 282/283. I've not had time to tinker with the DC cockpits project yet, but was wondering if that would be a work around solution? Well done on DTM's Super backdrops.
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Post by Vince T » Sat Apr 11, 2020 7:24 pm

Ah that may as well be the reason the energy bars don't show, the Dhilani Fighters all use RebelSuperLasers
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:32 pm

I'm curious - single-fire and full-linked modes are obvious, but how did the Dhilani Octopus's cannons behave in dual-link mode?

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Post by jmarso » Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:36 pm

Looking at capital ship OPT files, I've noticed that the hardpoints always seemed to be stacked to one side of the centerline, as if the modeller only did the hardpoints on one side. Why is this and how does it relate to a working model in game? Seems like I get shot at no matter which direction I'm coming from in-game.

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Post by Darksaber » Sat Apr 11, 2020 10:48 pm

The game mirrors the hardpoints on cap ships, checkout the original XWA opts, it's not just the XWA opts
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Post by Vince T » Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:16 pm

And good thing it does that. With a maximum of 128-ish hardpoints you'd run into difficulties arming large capships like star destroyers and larger appropriately.
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Post by Bman » Sat Apr 11, 2020 11:52 pm

Yep, only those four slots bring up the laser power bars, plus ion canons 284/285. Any other slots are not currently supported. So either a rewrite of the function or how the variables are defined or maybe blue max's D.C. cockpit hook might be a way to force the bars to show. Anyone know if that's possible ?
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Sun Apr 12, 2020 12:20 am

I thought the question was not how to expand it to cover other weapon types, but how to expand it to support more than four cannons?

I mean, the answer to both questions is still probably "a hook rewrite of the function"...

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Post by jmarso » Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:04 pm

Question about capital ships this time. The below screenshot is a planform of the space carrier Saratoga from Space Above and beyond. Red stars are rebel laser hardpoints, orange triangles are twin rebel turbloaser hardpoints attached to rotary gun turrets, and the yellow icon is a combination missile / torpedo launcher (one hardpoint each) on a rotary launcher.

In game, all the rebel lasers and the missile launcher appear to work fine. No fire at all is coming from the turrets, so I know I've set this up wrong. Also, even what's working right is doing so more by chance than any real knowledge on my part. I do know enough now to put hardpoints on only one side of a capital ship. Don't know if that rule applies to turrets or not, but the Sara was always lopsided that way anyhow. (Always thought this was the second ugliest design on the show behind the Chig capital ships).

So...

1. Should a capital ship even have a rotary turret assigned in XWA OPT Editor, or is that only meant for player craft with turret gunner stations?
2. If capital ships do use turrets, do you need to use the turret hook?
3. What is the proper way to set the weaponry tab in MXvTED to represent 10 Red Turbolasers, 12 Rebel lasers, 1 missile launcher, 1 torpedo launcher? The second screenshot below is my current setup based on trying to imitate similar capital ships, but I can never get the weaponry tab to correlate in my brain to what I'm seeing in terms of hardpoints. Even though the plain rebel lasers seem to be working well as point defenses, I have no idea if this tab is set up right.
Screenshot (72).png
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Post by jmarso » Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:04 pm

Screenshot (73).png
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Post by jmarso » Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:10 pm

One last screen shot to show how I have the ship broken down in XWA OPT Editor:
Screenshot (75).png
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Post by Bman » Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:18 am

You're on the right track. Changing your weapons system drop down box from "8" to "0" will activate the rotatry turrets on non-flyable craft, as long as their transformation vectors are setup correctly, and you have to use Optech to test the rotation. It takes a lot of time and is a pain. Also the laser hardpoints on the hull may or may not fire and you loose the auto mirroring effect on both sides and you can't max out to 128 laser hardpoints. With rotaryGun turrets the maximum limit is 16 laser hardpoint "pairs" or less for the whole model, assuming you have just a pair of laser hardpoints on 16 different turret meshes (twin barrels) like your above picture. Again, a pair in a mesh counts as "1" of "16" possible arrangements = 16 separate rotaryturret meshes. If you wanted the pair of laser hardpoints on the same mesh to fire concurrently you would double the hardpoints. So four hardpoints on your mesh showing in the above image would fire a true "pair" of laser blasts. More powerful, but using up 2 pairs out of 16.

For a Quad laser turret, you would have 4 laser hardpoints (one on each barrell) but they would fire sequentially, meaning one at a time. Double that to 8 hardpoints, and you would have true quad lasers firing all at once. Most powerful, but you just used up 4 laser hardpoint pairs out of 16. So you have to manage your limited resources and design of your models. That's just how everything is hard coded until someone can figure out how to get beyond the limitations.
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Post by jmarso » Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:38 am

Just noticed in the editor that there is an option for 'gun turret' as well as 'rotary gun turret.' What is the difference between the two?

Actually, I don't honestly care if the turrets move or behave like turrets at this point. If I made those meshes 'weapons systems' would they just function like regular hard points?

I'm still trying to figure out the table in the weaponry tab for cap ships as well, particularly the LNK and SEQ columns when everything else is set to zero. Does the LNK determine how many separate weapons engage a single target? (That's assuming there might be more than one target to choose from, like a swarm of attacking bombers). It doesn't seem to be related to the total number of hardpoints, since cycling through other ships I can see that the number of hard points is routinely greater than the number in the SEQ block.

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Post by Bman » Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:49 am

Small Gun and Gun Turret mesh types are more for fixed/static "turrets". The first is for starfighters, the later can be for starfighters but are more for A.I. use, including the gunnerwell positions like the Corellian Transports, Mil. Falcon et al, and the new rear gunnerwell turret on back of the Lambda Shuttle. In theory the first fires forward, the Gun Turret fires in all directions. No, the linked lasers is more for starfighters/flyable craft rather than starships. Think of the X-wing. You can "link" the lasers by toggling your X-key inflight. Doesn't have much effect for starships. However the sequence is more important for starships. And it behaves differently for different craft slots assuming you are using RotaryGunTurret meshes. It's confusing and not easy to explain but Sequence is kind of related to distinguishing which lasers are primary, secondary, and tertiary but not per se. In general, the primary laser systems you set sequence to 4. Secondary leave at 0, (sometimes 5), and tertiary laser system at 5. That way you could have three separate laser systems. For Matt's current ISD-I and ISD-II I have that. Short range lasers, Ion-Cannons, and Long range lasers, allocated among 16 different rotartGunTurrets. Sequences 1, 2, are for starighters. 3 is for flyable craft like the YT's transports, or can be. See the posts in Driftwood's "Weapon Slots" thread if you want to learn more about the types of laser hardpoints that can be used.

The "weapon systems" type meshes... I'm not as clear about them. I believe they mean that if you take out "all of those meshes" off an enemy starship, then it renders the ship disabled, no laser power, or it takes the ship down completely. Kinda like the "Shields" type meshes. XWAUP team guys probably know for sure. Some of the mesh types are unknown as far as functionality and may only work under certain conditions as defined in the mission file and craft or objects used.
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Post by jmarso » Thu Apr 23, 2020 2:50 am

Okay, thanks for the tips!

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