help needed with a research station for armada 2

posted on November 2nd, 2014, 11:20 pm

Hi, I am posting here because I need help with a research station.

Currently I am working on a whole new set of stations for Armada2 depicting the area between TMP and TNG the sometimes so called lost years.

I have finished all stations with the exemption of the third research station (systems upgrade).
This station drives me nuts. All other stations work fine and as they should.

I have finished all files for this station and can build it in game but as soon as I click on one of the research items, the game crashes immediately to desktop. It does not mater which item I click, the result is always the same.

So I hope someone here has some experience with these upgrade stations and can help me out.
I haven’t experienced this type of failure.

I have checked the odfs and the assigned hardpoints repeatedly but cannot find anything wrong.
I changed the pod odfs repeatedly and set them even to empty so they have no effect other than to build the pods. Nothing changes.

Perhaps one of you can give me some advice.


The station odf is added below.


#include "research.odf"

//**********************************************************************
//MAIN DESIGN PARAMETERS

//Name of Ship class in Ship Display window & in edit mode & tooltip
unitName = "Systems Research Institute"

//tooltips
tooltip = "Systems upgrade research"
verboseTooltip = "FED_UPGRADE_V"

//Race which can build ship & starting race of ship
race = "federation"

//Amount of time required to build ship
buildTime = 150.0

//Number of officers required to build this ship
officerCost = 10

//Number of crew required to build ship & Starting crew
crewCost = 400

//Dilithium Cost to build
dilithiumCost = 0

//Metal Cost to build
metalCost = 750

//Max Shield Strength & Begining Shield Strength <1000
maxHealth = 3500

//Rate at which shield recharges (points per second... we think)
shieldRate = 5.0

//Possible Craft Names
possibleCraftNames =
"T'Pan Center" "Sarak Center" "Zubrin Center" "Ziolkowski Center"
"Qian Xuesen Center" "Goddard Center" "Puttkamer Center" "McCormick Center"


//**********************************************************************
//Construction Parameters

podHardpoints = "hp19" "hp20" "hp21" "hp22" "hp23" "hp24" "hp25" "hp26" "hp27" "hp28"
buildItem0 = "fedtlepod11"
buildItem1 = "fedtlepod12"
buildItem2 = "fedtlepod13"
buildItem3 = "fedtlepod14"
buildItem4 = "fedtlepod15"

secondaryBuildItem0 = "fedtlepod21"
secondaryBuildItem1 = "fedtlepod22"
secondaryBuildItem2 = "fedtlepod23"
secondaryBuildItem3 = "fedtlepod24"
secondaryBuildItem4 = "fedtlepod25"

//**********************************************************************

//**********************************************************************
//ART PARAMETERS & WEAPON NAMES

// Phaser Beam
weapon1 = "fbphas"
weaponHardpoints1 = "hp11" "hp12" "hp13" "hp14" "hp15" "hp16" "hp17" "hp18"

// Hardpoints to hit for various systems and other locations.
enginesTargetHardpoints =
lifeSupportTargetHardpoints = "hp03" "hp04" "hp05" "hp06" "hp08" "hp09"
weaponsTargetHardpoints = "hp02" "hp03" "hp04" "hp08" "hp09" "hp10"
shieldGeneratorTargetHardpoints = "hp03" "hp05" "hp06" "hp07" "hp09" "hp10"
sensorsTargetHardpoints = "hp01" "hp02" "hp03" "hp05" "hp07" "hp10"
hullTargetHardpoints = "hp03" "hp05" "hp06" "hp07" "hp08" "hp10"
criticalTargetHardpoints = "hp02" "hp04" "hp06" "hp08" "hp09" "h10"

//**********************************************************************
//**********************************************************************
//AI system parameters
//These parameters influence how the AI evaluates and compares craft.

//An abstract number that represents how much extra strength must be
//used to attack this craft due to its weapons.
// (0.0=no weapons, 0.5 = average weapons, 1.0=many good weapons)
attackPower = 0.50f

//The normalized intrinsic value of a target. High value craft make good
//attack targets. (0.0=lowest value, 1.0=highest value)
intrinsicValue = 1.00f


//**********************************************************************

//**********************************************************************
//CREW STATUS MULTIPLIERS
//The multiplier for the delay between shots for weapons while in yellow status
weaponYellow = 1.5f

//The multiplier for the delay between shots for weapons while in red status
weaponRed = 2.5f
//**********************************************************************

scaleSOD = 1.5

//**********************************************************************
//SYSTEM HITPOINTS

// Hitpoints

shieldGeneratorHitPoints = 600
enginesHitPoints = 0
weaponsHitPoints = 600
lifeSupportHitPoints = 600
sensorsHitPoints = 600

//**********************************************************************



//**********************************************************************
//SYSTEM DAMAGE DISTRIBUTION
//The following section's values should add up to 100
//Percent Chance out of 100 of engines being destroyed
enginesHitPercent = 0.0f

//Percent Chance out of 100 of life support being destroyed
lifeSupportHitPercent = 10.5f

//Percent Chance out of 100 of weapons being destroyed
weaponsHitPercent = 10.0f

//Percent Chance out of 100 of shields being destroyed
shieldGeneratorHitPercent = 13.0f

//Percent Chance out of 100 of sensors being destroyed
sensorsHitPercent = 13.0f

//Percent Chance out of 100 of hull being hit (crew dying)
crewHitPercent = 13.5f

//Percent Chance out of 100 of entire ship exploding
hullHitPercent = 40.0f
//**********************************************************************


//**********************************************************************
//MESSAGE & SOUND PARAMETERS

eventSelect = "ShipUpgradeStationSelect"
eventAcknowledge = "ShipUpgradeStationAcknowledge"
eventDecommission = "ShipUpgradeStationDecommission"

//**********************************************************************


//**********************************************************************
//KEYMAP LABEL
// Obsolete, use hotkeyLabel
// keymapLabel = "ship_upgrade_station"
hotkeyLabel = "HOTKEY_U"

//************************************************************
// Brian additions for context sensitive menus
alert = 1
combat = 1
transporter = 1
SHOW_MOVEMENT_AUTONOMY = 1
SHOW_SW_AUTONOMY = 1

posted on November 4th, 2014, 10:58 pm

Never mind,

I have found the solution. The underlying problem has been the naming of the pod hardpoints.
I had it in front of my eyes but did not realize it. (Well sometimes you look to hard for a mistake while the solution is somewhere else)


The line
podHardpoints = "hp19" "hp20" "hp21" "hp22" "hp23" "hp24" "hp25" "hp26" "hp27" "hp28"

is in itself correct but has to look like this:

podHardpoints = "hp19" "hp20" "hp21" "hp22" "hp23" "hp54" "hp55" "hp56" "hp57" "hp58"


It seems to be hardcoded in the game engine that there has to be a larger interval in the numeration of the pod hardpoints.
There has to be a distance of 10, 20 or more(multiples of 10) between the numbers of the primary pod hardpoints to the secondary hardpoints.

Otherwise the game engine has a problem to allocate the hardpoints to the research items / pods, thus resulting in a crash.

Hope it adds to the knowledge base.

posted on November 6th, 2014, 1:13 am

Actually, I've found that distancing the Hps doesn't matter, as long as they exist. Weird as it might be, but your model might not have sequentially labelled Hps. If any of those hardpoints listed doesn't exist on the physical model, then it goes haywire when its told to build a pod (as you've experienced)

posted on November 8th, 2014, 7:55 pm

Hi,

the hardpoints where all present and labeled in sequence. It was one of the first things I looked for. That’s also one of the reasons why I could not find anything wrong in the first place.

On my search for mistakes I compared all of the original odfs that came with the stations.
The only difference of these files to my work was the sequencing of the hardpoints.

As soon as I did likewise everything worked.

So I came to the conclusion that the game engine needs a larger interval in the numeration of the pod hardpoints to decide which ones are for the primary and which are for the secondary research items.
Interesting that you had different results.