Topic: OP Weapon Arc Questions

[intermech]

I am adapting my SFC3 mod Terra Prime to Orion Pirates so that campaign mod can be utilized. I have replaced race names as replaced all of the model references in the ShipList files (both). Now I am attempting to customize each ship so that the battle style feels more like the SFC3 version of Terra Prime. I have experimented with the ShipList files in many ways and I am not able to get the results that I want.

Desired results:
Ships need to be set up to encourage broad side battle techniques. I want to shoot primary weapons on a very thin arc out of either side of the ships and fire the heavy weapons our of the bow and some times the stern, again, on very thin arcs.

What I have tried:
I have tried using shipedit to edit the arcs on ESG Lance and Gatling phasers, however it seems that they can fire in any direction. When I do change the arcs in shipedit, I can no longer see the arcs in the UI during game play. When I click the view weapon arc button they many times do not show the arc icon on the weapon.

Some questions:

How much of a shiplist entry can I change and the ship can still be used in the campaign mode? I notice that when I put only my custom ships in and the erase others, the game will crash.

Do the scripts in the campaigns look for BVP, ship class, ship name, power?

What do I have to keep the same, what do I have to make sure retains the stock configurations for the scripts to still run?

I notice that when I change the UI (I think that is what it is called) for a ship from say a FBB to a IFF, I no longer can see all of my weapons in the user interface in game, I think they still work, but I can't even see them to select them to repair them, is there a fix for that?

Is there a source for fine tuning ship specs and making sure you have enough power to supply all of your weapon?

Does anyone have an algorithm for balancing these things?

Are there strange quarks where one weapon will not work with one particular ship, or arc?

Your help and suggestions are much appreciated.

[intermech]

....dead Jim.

[intermech]

Thanks for the help guys.

[Rod ONeal]

there are arcs in OP that aren't in shipedit, added by Dave F in the last patching. You have to put them in the shiplist manually.

SFBL and SFBR: these are narrow (60deg) arcs directly to the left and right sides of the vessel, respectively. The mauler arc is very narrow, about 30deg IIRC, directly to the front of the vessel. there's no arc narrower than RA (120deg) to the rear. The mauler and RA arcs are in shipedit, but the SFBL/SFBR are not.

As far as your other questions go, balancing power and weapons (and movement cost) these have enough variables to them that it'd be impossible to have a concise answer. Things that make the game crash, many of the specs have limits that, beyond which, the game will crash. Again too many to easily list. One example would be if you set drone control to higher than 12 the game will crash if the AI flies the "over-drone-controlled" ship. It'll work fine when human controlled though. Scripts can have many different balancing factors. It might be only BPV, or ship-class. Or it might be both.

Sorry I can't br more helpfull on many of your questions. The SFBL/SFBR arcs might be a big help at least.

[intermech]

Yeah, thanks, those archs will help alot.

Thank you for taking to the time to write up that detailed post.

[Rod ONeal]

No problem, IM. If you have a specific ship(s) that's not working and you'd like me to look at the specs (shiplist) for it, I'd be happy to. I'm pretty well versed with the specfiles (shiplist/ftrlist, etc...). I could probably sort it out for you.