Star Wars: A Galaxy in Chaos (Mod by Rifraf and Majestic)

[Majestic]

This sounds great, I can't wait for an updated and upgrade SW mod for Armada. I have always loved SW Fleet Command. It is unfortunate they were not able to complete the conversion of their ST vs SW from A1 to A2. Perhaps in the near future we will see something like that here.......

Yeah SWFC is really outdated in fact I discovered when looking at the files that the majority of their models are direct ports from the old X-wing game series most notably X-wing Alliance. In fact my fighters are higher quality that that. It's a shame that even back in that day they didn't look at making new models as the standard back then was even better than the X-wing models. I should know I was around at that point. lol

I have another couple of questions. Can someone tell me the name of the Fed ship in FO that deploys fighters? If I recall those fighters were not controllable correct? I want to check it out and see how they did it.

Yeah Avalon as Cabal pointed out. The hangar is a weapon in that file and the fighter is a separate file again that is referenced in the hangar weapon. So say we want a ISD to launcher TIE Fighters and TIE Bombers, there will need to be two hangar weapons each assigned as a seperate weapon to the ship, in this case the ISD.

Also, let's say I have an enemy base and an enemy battle ship. I want my battleship to fight theirs, but I want my fighter/bombers to attack the station. I would use a higher intrinsicvalue on the station so my fighters engage it? If the fighters aren't controllable will they single out the station over the enemy battleship? Conversely I want their enemy fighters to only counter my fighter/bombers and ignore my battleship. If their station has a higher intrinsicvalue than their battle ship what will stop my battleship from auto-targeting their station first? Is this all possible?

I think you can set it that their weapons will only work on particular units, been a while still I modded FO or A2. It would be great if we can set it that bombers only attack stations and heavy capital ships, fighters target other fighters and small capital ships and interceptors only attack other fighters and bombers. I am sure there is a way to do it. I'll need to look at brushing up on my odf skills in reference to commands once I get the modeling done.

 

[Rifraf]

I started building the mod folder with it's files and menus and have a working mod to play from. I just chose the borg and fed race files and changed the names to imperial and rebel. Everything fires up with the imperial and rebel factions being selectable. Obviously it launches the borg and fed avatars/ships/stations, but it's a start. I got the Victor Class Frigate and it's deployable tie fighters in game too to begin testing and learning how to mod everything into FO using the guide.

If you start the game and then select the map editor you can go in and place ships/stations etc. In stock A2 you could press Ctrl-A and then be taken into the game to move the ship, issue commands and test play and then switch back to the editor over and over. I'm trying this in the mod, but it won't switch over. Has this been taken out of FO?

 

[Majestic]

If you start the game and then select the map editor you can go in and place ships/stations etc. In stock A2 you could press Ctrl-A and then be taken into the game to move the ship, issue commands and test play and then switch back to the editor over and over. I'm trying this in the mod, but it won't switch over. Has this been taken out of FO?

I believe it has, I too used to use it for testing purposes but I think they removed it so people couldn't cheat in online games.

 

[Rifraf]

Well that sucks. I guess I'll have to make everything I add as a starting unit so I can test how it works that way?

Can you also take a look at the attached pic? I've resized the tie relative to the victor, but you'll notice the red glowing ion engines on the tie cause the whole ship to glow red. I'm guessing the smaller size you go the bigger the glow? I don't know if you want to leave that way or not, but just FYI?

 

[Majestic]

I won't be putting glows on the newer TIES, In fact a lot of the models I have done will be getting glow reduced, thanks to the info Adm_Z posted about in my thread about glows.

Also I am sure you know about this and only use it for testing purposes, but the Victor doesn't have fighters, no hangar it's a pure anti-fighter platform and escort frigate.

 

[Rifraf]

I remember Adm_Z mentioning that too. That's good to know then.

I just grabbed a ship to start testing on actually. I should have picked the Quasar. Your HP map chart included on the Victor lists 4 hangars though so I thought I was safe? As you get more ships done though we can go over the Tactical Comparison chart and nail down roles and see if I missed anything or got something wrong. My knowledge of Star Wars is fairly lacking compared to Star Trek. I probably shouldn't admit that.

 

[Majestic]

I remember Adm_Z mentioning that too. That's good to know then.

I just grabbed a ship to start testing on actually. I should have picked the Quasar. Your HP map chart included on the Victor lists 4 hangars though so I thought I was safe?

That must have been a misprint on my part, I often copy the hardpoint.txt from one ship to another and edit it. My bad!

As you get more ships done though we can go over the Tactical Comparison chart and nail down roles and see if I missed anything or got something wrong. My knowledge of Star Wars is fairly lacking compared to Star Trek. I probably shouldn't admit that.

As Vader would say, I find your lack of faith disturbing!

 

[Majestic]

Thread title changed at request from OP (opening poster).

News will be posted in due course.

 

[Rifraf]

I have another questions regarding FO code. In every ship file there is this:
weapon1iconpos = 42 50
weapon2iconpos = 59 50
weapon3iconpos = 70 50

I don't quite understand the purpose if say your ship has phasers only and there is no button to click to fire those phasers? Looking at the FO guide are these the little squares that appear over the top of the ship wireframe image with a little picture representing your weapon? And they would only apply to special weapons in most cases like below?

 

[Majestic]

Those system images are designed to show you at a quick place the weapons and such and their status.

I have yet to dabble in the wireframes and system icons in FO. But it is my understanding any weapon can be displayed here through the use of code. I think there is a file somewhere or it's in the individual weapon files themselves were a particular weapon icon type is indicated.

 

[CABAL]

Yep, those icons can be used to represent any weapon, special or not. Systemimages.spr is where the sprite definitions are at. For normal weapons, they pretty much just show reload progress, but specials also show if the weapon is toggled on or off.

 

[Rifraf]

Thank you for the info. Another question with the Avalon, you click the button to launch the fighters, but can you click again to recall them or do they stay out until they're all destroyed? If they stay out can you code it so you can recall them?

I do remember that if the carrier is destroyed the fighters can dock with another carrier so do they then just get counted as that carriers fighter compliment?

 

[Majestic]

I'm pretty certain they can't be recalled. Also fighters after their carrier is returned can only be supported by ships with the shuttlebay weapon. Check out the FO Akira and Soverign I think both of those are equipped with the support bay weapon.

 

[Rifraf]

I see the "passive_shuttlebay" weapon in the Akira and Sovie ODF's, but I don't understand why this weapon is not in the base Akira and Sovie ODF's and instead is in AkiraY.odf and SovereignY.odf? These two new ODF's have basename = "fed_sovereign" etc , but why a whole new ODF? Is it a whole new ship or does it king of become a new ship when it takes on another carriers fighters?

For a project report I have a generic button on each carrier to manually launch the fighters and bombers. I'm trying to figure out some little things with regards to this coding, but at it's base they launch and attack the ship the carrier is attacking so at least moving forward. I believe we are leaving the fighters on AI control and not giving the player the ability to control them like Adm_Z did with his mod.

The fighters/bombers are not the main aspect of the mod so they can be launched, but are then autonomous. I certainly don't know much yet about modding FO, but so far it hasn't been as difficult as I anticipated. I have to refer to the guide every 10 seconds, but at least I'm learning.

 

[CABAL]

If I recall correctly, the Y denotes a particular Avatar. I think the other letter used for Avatars is Z.

 

[Majestic]

I see the "passive_shuttlebay" weapon in the Akira and Sovie ODF's, but I don't understand why this weapon is not in the base Akira and Sovie ODF's and instead is in AkiraY.odf and SovereignY.odf? These two new ODF's have basename = "fed_sovereign" etc , but why a whole new ODF? Is it a whole new ship or does it king of become a new ship when it takes on another carriers fighters?

The way FO is setup, the X and Y indicates the two avatar units, hence why the basename is included in the code. The AI if I recall right uses the base units while players use the avatar ones.

I believe we are leaving the fighters on AI control and not giving the player the ability to control them like Adm_Z did with his mod.

Well if I recalled with Zaxxon's mod while were automatic until a player gave them an order after which they could no longer be controlled automatically by the AI. I am for leaving them totally automatic as I hate micro-management and with fighters being used quite extensively it would become more a burden than an advantage. What does everyone else who is following this mod think?

The fighters/bombers are not the main aspect of the mod so they can be launched, but are then autonomous. I certainly don't know much yet about modding FO, but so far it hasn't been as difficult as I anticipated. I have to refer to the guide every 10 seconds, but at least I'm learning.

FO isn't that much different from A2 to be honest. Initially it can look a little daunting but after you get your head around things like unit caps, new code options, avatars etc it becomes quite easy. The guide is sure invaluable for us modders.

 

[Rifraf]

The way FO is setup, the X and Y indicates the two avatar units, hence why the basename is included in the code. The AI if I recall right uses the base units while players use the avatar ones.

Well that makes perfect sense then I just couldn't see it. It's like a beam of light in the dark.

Well if I recalled with Zaxxon's mod while were automatic until a player gave them an order after which they could no longer be controlled automatically by the AI. I am for leaving them totally automatic as I hate micro-management and with fighters being used quite extensively it would become more a burden than an advantage. What does everyone else who is following this mod think?

I'm with you, I don't want to have to control even more ships. Just launch and let them do their thing.

 

[Rifraf]

I don't know if FO experiences this when a carrier launches a fighter or anyone else's mod for that matter, but when I order a carrier to attack a ship and then launch my fighters the carrier stops attacking? Has anyone run into this or know if it's fixable?

 

[Zelph]

I have noticed that on my end, but I figured it was just me. It'll attack again provided I click though, does it not resume on your end?

 

[Rifraf]

Yeah, if I click to attack again it will. For some reason launching fighters cancels the carriers attack order. If I'm not mistaken Adm_Z encountered this in his Star Wars FO mod as well.

 

[Rifraf]

Here's a couple pictures of the progress. And I have a question as well. I'm having an issue with the "buttonslot = X" command. I guess I just don't get it. What values do I assign to them? Reason I ask is because I have two carries that each launch 1 fighter and 1 bomber. The bomber has a button slot of 30 and shows in the launch display of both ships. However 1 fighter has a buttonslot of 31 and shows, but the other has a buttonslot of 33 and doesn't show? I'm not understanding why if every fighter has a different buttonslot value why they don't all show up?

 

[Majestic]

I would check to see if anything else is using button slot 33, could be a conflict with another item. Failing that I would check for any typos just in case.

Great to see some in-game images, my money in on the Gladiator.

 

[Rifraf]

FINALLY got all the launch buttons showing up now. I neglected to put "all" the launch command odf's in the techtree files. I was ready to rip out what hair I have and be done. OK, back to modding.

 

[Zelph]

Well if I recalled with Zaxxon's mod while were automatic until a player gave them an order after which they could no longer be controlled automatically by the AI. I am for leaving them totally automatic as I hate micro-management and with fighters being used quite extensively it would become more a burden than an advantage. What does everyone else who is following this mod think?

I somehow missed this question before. I'm also for fully automatic, especially with the number of fighters that'll end up being deployed by the bigger ships.

 

[Rifraf]

Fighters will be automatic, choosing their own targets. Lets the player focus on using their capital ships. Just launch your fighter/bomber and go about your business.

I have some Star Wars sounds in now too. You hear a TIE Fighter sound when launching Imperial ships, Xwing, Awing and Ywing sounds when launching Rebel ships. I also have the TIE weapon sounds and some for the rebels too. Here a some pics from testing.

 

[Majestic]

Great work, it's awesome to see those models in action. It's funny each time I see them like that I think " I remember building that model", "I remember texturing that one", "Oh that was was a bit tricky".

I also have a hoard of Star Wars sounds that we can use too Rifraf. I'll try and get them too you this weekend or early next week sometime. It includes sound effects and unit voices etc. I haven't had a chance to work on anymore of the music nor the menus but it's on my list.

 

[Rifraf]

Got some more weapon files done for ships so here's some pics

 

[Majestic]

Great work Rifraf, great to see some more units in-game flogging it out in combat with each other. I think this will be a great mod when finished.

 

[Cborg1700]

Indeed. Can't wait to play it. Looks fantastic

 

[Zelph]

Got some more weapon files done for ships so here's some pics

I was on my tablet before so I couldn't quite appreciate these screenshots in all their glory. They look fantastic man! I'm a little a scared of that Imperial fleet!