Topic: Damaged Ships in Campaigns? (Read 5454 times)

Bonk · « **Reply #20 on:** July 14, 2003, 08:49:20 am »

Note that I have been testing my list on a D2 server, and I have found that making the PFTs restricted for the host race also makes them unavailable to the recieving race. (thus I made one cartel the host for all races and wil make it a non-playable cartel on campaigns I use this list on). But that was using the correct hull type in the host race, I'll try your trick of making the host race PFTs an unavailable hull type, thanks for the tip - never would have thought of that. Great to hear you got your damage issue sorted out!

Edit: I believe that Capt Jeff is doing exactly this with an EAW shiplist based on OP Plus (as outlined in the thread above) for the upcoming Storm Season II (?) campaign. You guys might want to compare notes on that one too, as this seems to have been productive for both of us.

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #21 on:** July 14, 2003, 09:37:53 am »

The tenders and carriers for all the races show up just fine as builds etc, everywhere in the singleplayer game the way I do it. Like I said earlier, "The only multiplayer experience that I have with the mod is playing by myself against the AI in MP mode." It worked though. When you're deciding on a hull type for the host race, don't use unknown. That was the obvious choice for me to try first. The repair systems don't work though.
EAW is "A Horse of a Different Color", as the old saying goes, at least in singleplayer campaigns. Setting up the shiplist the same way as OP doesn't work completely. You can't purchase/replace fighters. I don't know what's different mechanically between the two. I don't believe there should be any problem with multiplayer though. The game seems to, from my experience anyway, work the same in MP as in skirmish.
Thanks again (1000 times) for responding to my post. Without Dave's checker there would have been no way, that I can imagine, for me to have found the breaks in the shiplist.
The "gaming gods" were very kind to me yesterday. First the fix for the mod and later last night Azel/Atolm finished the Space Dragon model that I requested from him. (Actually, to be accurate. I told him that I thought that he could do an awesome Space Dragon and he then OFFERED to make it. He's one of the truly nice guys around here

)

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #22 on:** July 05, 2003, 08:44:19 am »

Does anyone know, besides needing the same speclists in the assets and metaassets folders, what would
cause ships to appear damaged in single player campaigns? I've gotten the Ftrs & PFs mod to work for
single player campaigns. the added carriers and tenders show up in the players builds, you can select
and use whatever fighters and PFs you want, etc..., Some of the added ships come in damaged though. If
anybody knows what might cause this it'll save me having to use pure trial and error to find the prob.
Any input would be much appreciated.

KHHJakle · « **Reply #23 on:** July 05, 2003, 12:27:56 pm »

Please share what you did to get it to work in the singleplayer.....

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #24 on:** July 05, 2003, 10:50:20 pm »

Quote:

Please share what you did to get it to work in the singleplayer.....

do you mean for the single player campaigns, or in general? Either way, it takes a lot of typing to try to explain. I PM'd you if you want to talk about it.

In the meantime, does anyone have any idea what might be causing the damaged ships?

Anybody?

Pestalence · « **Reply #25 on:** July 06, 2003, 07:13:24 am »

adding more systems than the ship has slots would cause a problem like that,

or it could just be a setting in a *.gf file that allows for random ship damage when you start a mission....

In order for anyone here to be able to have a clue, you may want to copy and paste your shiplist.txt file to see if there are any errors...

It could be so much as you deleting a tab space, or adding an extra tab space....

or an invalid numerical entry that exceeds the games limitations....

but like i said, we won't be able to help much without more information...

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #26 on:** July 06, 2003, 07:57:41 am »

Pestalence,
Thanks for your input. Pasting the whole shiplist on the forum wouldn't be very practicle, unfortunately. It's not anything obvious, like exceeding system limits or the scripts. I'm going to try deleting everything not needed to make the ships work, like refit info, etc. and take it from there. I'm afraid it'll end up being a bunch of trial and error until I come across the prob. I was hoping that someone else had expeienced the same situation from a common problem, like the assets, metaasets mistake, or having .5 crew units, which will also as cause it, as an example. Again, thanks

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #27 on:** July 08, 2003, 11:40:59 am »

Well, after somemore playtesting it appears to be a ship by ship problem, not anything to do with the mod in general. that's the good news. The bad news is that it means that I'm going to have to play all the campaigns for all the races and use all the added ships to find all the effected ones. As you can imagine, this is going to take a while, to put it mildly.
If there's anyone out there who's running, or would like to run the OP mod, and wants to try the new specfiles to help me get through this quicker, let me know. you'd need to play the singleplayer campaigns and let me know which ships need to be fixed. Just pick a race and play a campaign using as many different ships as possible. I've tried it with both the stock campaigns and some of Evil Dave's custom ones and both seem to work.
In the meantime I'm going to continue plodding my way through them. All 8 empires and their cartels

Stormbringer · « **Reply #28 on:** July 12, 2003, 10:52:42 pm »

I recall this happening in the old games when a saved game had different ship data than in the specfile but I assume you've already checked that out knowing your experience with the games?

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #29 on:** July 12, 2003, 11:35:04 pm »

Don't assume anything

I appreciate your input. It does happen with fresh games. It's definately something though with specific ships. I played the Gorns for a while and they played perfectly. I didn't use ALL the ships, but I used a good crossection of them and none were damaged. I've played some of the Feds and didn't have any troubles. The Klingons and Lyrans, are a completely different story though. All that I can do at this point is to continue to playtest and try to find and fix the broken ships. It's just a really S-L-O-W process. I'm not gonna quit though. It might be next year before I get it all working, but at least I know that it can work.

Bonk · « **Reply #30 on:** July 13, 2003, 01:21:34 am »

I have been working on improving upon gman's SFB-OP shiplist from 2001. I have modified the original list to allow player access to the PFTs and PFs for empires that did not originally have PFs in SFC. I have suspended work on it until the upcoming OP patch is out, as it will likely affect possible design choices.

I have only been using it on a D2 server and for tcp/ip multiplayer. I did run some tests in skirmish too. I have not seen this problem at all. But I have not tried the list on a single player campaign. Have you tried the list you are working with on a D2 server or in multiplayer? Does this problem show up wherever the list is used or only in single player campaigns?

How are you editing your shiplist? (I use excel , it works perfectly and allows for some automation...)

What ships are you adding? Are they from SFB SSDs (pretty sure to work), or are they your own designs? (I'm guessing you may be violating some of the rules of SFC ship construction.)

I have a proposed structure of the damage blob from the ship table of the SQL database for EAW. (I theorise that the blobs in the SQL db are whats left of the flatfile to avoid creating a relational database) In any case this same data is present in each "?AVtShip@@" record of the flatfile of EAW and OP.

The damage blob is 100 bytes of data that must be determined from the shiplist in use. (Reconstructing the damage, stores and officers blobs is what is slowing down efforts to edit a players ships directly.)

The proposed structure of the damage blob:
Code:

 
Damage Blob

14 14 14 14 00 00 06 06   Lw RW CW IM  
05 05 08 08 08 08 08 08   AP UN  LB SE
08 08 00 00 10 10 08 08   SC CR FH AH   
00 00 03 03 08 08 05 05   CH TC ED TR   
05 05 07 07 08 06 00 00   UN BA BR ST   
00 00 00 00 08 08 02 02   RP BK DC PB     
00 00 02 02 02 02 00 00   AR T1 T2 T3   
00 00 00 00 00 00 02 02   T4 T5 T6 T7   
00 00 00 00 00 00 02 02   T8 T9 T0 W1
02 02 02 02 02 02 02 02   W2 W3 W4 W5
00 00 02 02 00 00 00 00   W6 W7 W8 W9
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   W0 P1 P2 P3
00 00 00 00',            P4 P5         

Values are in pairs. 
First value is Un-Damaged Value.
Second value is Damaged Value.

LW-Left Warp
RW-Right Warp
CW-Center Warp
IM-Impulse
AP-APR
LB-Lab
SE-Sensors
SC-Scanners
CR-Cargo
FH-Forward Hull
AH-Aft Hull
CH-Center Hull
TC-Tractor
ED-Excess Damage
TR-Transporter
BA-Battery
BR-Bridge
ST-Shuttle Bay
RP-Repair
BK-Barracks
DC-Damage Control
PB-Probe
AR-Armor
T1-T0 Torpedo Weapon 1-10
W1-W0 Weapon 1-10
P1-P5 Weapon 11-15
UN-Unsure

The stores (drones,fighters,shuttles,mines,marines...) blob is a bit more complicated as it varies in size from ship to ship but we should be able to work it out given enough time. The officers blob looks pretty simple as it is the same for every ship (looks like it is not in use or is only changed during missions).

The last piece of my puzzle is the shipcachevector in the servcharacter table of the db. I have a good bead on it but have not yet identified a few 4 byte longs (or individual bytes?).

Anyway, I'm rambling, hopefully the rough outline of the damage blob in the database may help you identify the problem with your shiplist.

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #31 on:** July 13, 2003, 07:41:43 am »

I haven't actually played online. My connection is very slow. I have gone into multiplayer and played scripts by myself on my pc with no problem. The only place, so far, that this has occurred is in the singleplayer campaigns. Any other aspect of the game that I've tried has worked fine. The game seems to use the shiplist and ftrlist files differently in the singleplayer campaigns. Also EAW and OP don't work the same way in the singleplayer campaigns either.
The specs are from SFB. To my knowledge, I haven't exceeded any game limits for ship design. ie; Too many weapons, or weapons in the wrong slots, too high a drone control, etc... I use notepad w/xp and shipedit to edit the files. Would you try playing the singleplayer campaigns with your files and let me know if it works?
Are you doing carriers for the pf races as well, with your mod?

Bonk · « **Reply #32 on:** July 13, 2003, 11:36:22 am »

I will test my list in a singleplayer campaign to see what I get when I get a chance and let you know (it may take some time, as I need to create space on my harddisk to re-install my mod). I have not added carriers to the PF races yet (gorn, rom, lyran), but my buddy I have been testing with wants them added. I intend to add them when I get the SFB material from another friend.

Are the ships that are damaged the ones edited with shipedit? I hear that shipedit will sometimes add redundant spaces to the shiplist; this might be the cause of your trouble? NuclearWessels made a shiplist checker that may indicate the problems and DarkElf posted a compiled copy here:

http://www.sfcfed.net/darkelf/shiplistchecker.exe
(Note: Put it in your root SFC2 directory (C:\Program Files\Taldren\StarFleet Command II\) or (C:\Program Files\Taldren Software Inc\Starfleet Command Orion Pirates))

Dave's source for the checker can be found here:
http://www.sfcx.org/downloads/mirrors/NuclearWessels/ShiplistChecker.cpp

After making a backup, I would just open your list in excel as a tab delimited text file, remove the indicated spaces, save, and test to see if that was the problem.

I'll let you know what I get when I reinstall the mod I'm working on. (hopefully soon)

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #33 on:** July 13, 2003, 01:46:45 pm »

Thanks again. I've used shipedit on all of the added ships, I believe (?). Mostly though to fill in the specs. My normal procedure is to copy and paste a similar ship, change the designation, and then use shipedit to change what needs to be changed.
Do let me know what you find out w/your version of the mod. If you do run into any snags, maybe I'll know the answers to them. It looks like we're both working towards the same goal here. I'll see if Dave's utility sheds any light on the problem and report anything of note.

Bonk · « **Reply #34 on:** July 13, 2003, 02:51:10 pm »

Sure does sound similar, well two heads are better than one I guess!

I started from this file:
http://piratesexchange.tripod.com/Mods/SFBOP_shiplist.zip
(Credited to Ghost/ FleetDock13 on that website but actually by gman.)

Which is also used unmodified in Chris Jones' Ultimate TOS mod for OP:
http://www.stcd.sgnonline.com/downloads/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=560 (specs)
http://www.stcd.sgnonline.com/downloads/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=561 (models)
(I just installed them to a dummy folder to take a look)

You might find those interesting.

(I made some disk space and I'll have my mod installed again soon.)

Stormbringer · « **Reply #35 on:** July 13, 2003, 04:40:39 pm »

Hmmmmmmm. IIRC If you are playing a game that has two sets of specfiles, in addition to saved games, those have to match exactly too. When I played and they were different the hard point icon would show a destroyed or damaged subsytem or hull damage. The specfile for MPand skirmish had to match the specfile for singleplayer.

Rod O'neal · « **Reply #36 on:** July 13, 2003, 06:31:15 pm »

Hello Bonk,
Well, thanks to you and Dave's utility, I think that I've found the prob(s). when I run the checker there's a whole bunch of this:
Single space found in column 118 of G-CVS(line 88)
Single space found in column 119 of G-CVS(line 88)
Single space found in column 120 of G-CVS(line 88)
Single space found in column 121 of G-CVS(line 88)
Evidently, somehow (maybe during the copy & pasteing, I'm not sure) a whole lot of spaces (like when you hit the spacebar, not blank spaces) were inserted into the shiplist. Some of these, I believe, are what's causing the problem. I've mapped out (numbered) all the columns and by openning the shiplist w/shipedit and backspacing in the effected fields I can remove them.
Column 118 is # of ftrs in bay 3, 119 is ftr type in bay 3, 120 is # of ftrs in bay 4, 121 is ftr type in bay 4, just as an example.
There's a WHOLE BUNCH of this.
Well, I've some editing to do

Wish me luck

Bonk · « **Reply #37 on:** July 13, 2003, 09:12:10 pm »

Careful using shipedit to correct the extra spaces, I think that shipedit is the culprit for introducing them. That's why I suggest excel.

I think stormbringer may have something there, are you placing a copy of your edited shiplist in both the Assets/Specs folder AND the MetaAssets folder? (should be)

Good luck with the editing, I'm off to download the LB4 files! (I'll check my mod in single player soon - promise!)

Bonk · « **Reply #39 on:** July 13, 2003, 11:58:58 pm »

WRT to starting prestige in single player, I think all you need to do is edit the Character.gf file in MetaAssets\ServerProfiles\SinglePlayer and set StartingPrestige to whatever you wish.
note: When editing gf files do not change the formatting at all, just replace the number and leave all the odd formatting the way it is. (I edit gf files in notepad with wordwrap off.)

The construction of my updated SFB_OP shiplist is best outlined here: Re: Firesoul, need your permission . . .

It sounds like you may be doing things differently. Take the Klingons as an example, they already had carriers in the SFB_OP shiplist, I left them in. To give them PFTs I removed the "R" and "SPECIAL" designation of the PFTs and assigned them their proper ship class then copied the PFTs to the Tigerheart cartel which I have placed at the top of the shiplist. (Changing the copied PFTs empire to tigerheart) I did the same for the PFs as well. So the Klingon PFTs and PFs are present in both the Klingon Empire and Tigerheart Cartel. Have you got an easier approach that works?

News:

Topic: Damaged Ships in Campaigns? (Read 5454 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

Bonk

Rod O'neal

Rod O'neal

KHHJakle

Rod O'neal

Pestalence

Rod O'neal

Rod O'neal

Stormbringer

Rod O'neal

Bonk

Rod O'neal

Bonk

Rod O'neal

Bonk

Stormbringer

Rod O'neal

Bonk

Rod O'neal

Bonk

Topic: Damaged Ships in Campaigns? (Read 5454 times)