Tweaking stats (and adding weapons!)

posted on February 28th, 2019, 2:07 am

So I've done a bit of looking around here, and I either missed it or didn't find how to do it. I'm hoping it's fairly simple to do, so figure asking here wouldn't hurt.

Short version: I'd like to edit the stats on some ships, more for my own personal entertainment, than anything else. And further to this, I'd like to add weapons to ships. Nothing over the top, just things like, more phasers for Fed ships and the like. TO emulate that beautiful scene in Star Trek Nemesis when the Enterprise-E blasts away in all directions, looking for the Scimitar. Can anyone point me to some links and how-tos? Or is this not feasible?

posted on February 28th, 2019, 4:50 am

I'd recommend two steps:
1st setting up your own mod
2nd copying files from FleetOps into your mod and editing them there

I believe from the other thread you already have created a "mods" directory in "Data", so you can just create a directory in "mods" and call it "my mod". You also need a directory to place your ODFs in, so the path might look like this:

Star Trek Armada II Fleet Operations\Data\Mods\my mod\odf\system

Then go back to Data and run FPQEdit, click on "file", "open" and select "ODF.fpq" and on the left you can go into the folders and all the ODFs are stored in "system". Now you can open ODFs and also with a left-click extract them to your mod for editing.

When you start your mod everything will be the same as before, except for the files you placed into your mod. It's pretty awesome that you don't need to copy the whole game into your mod, just the files you want to change and the game will do the rest.

A more detailed explanation is here: http://guide.fleetops.net/guide/modding

Multi-targetting phasers are possible, but the last time I did that is years ago and I believe what bothered me is that while the enemy is not in range yet, the phaser just fires blindly somewhere without hitting anything. I believe it also automatically hits cloaked vessels.

posted on February 28th, 2019, 5:36 am

https://www.fleetops.net/forums/modific ... ally-12604

This sounds like a good solution! (after familiarizing yourself with weapon and ordonance)

posted on March 2nd, 2019, 9:10 pm

OK, I've done some reading and tinkering, and I updated the health stats on the fed_phalanx.odf file, using the instructions provided. Bit what are fed_phalanxM, PhalanxMr2, Mr3 etc and r2, r3, etc used for? There's 74 files with 'phalanx' in the name; do I need to amend the maxhull and maxshield stats on all of them?

And I'm more confused than anything about adding additional weapons... thought I had it figured out, by just adding weapon hardpoints to each weapon, but no change. To test it, I removed all the possible ship names, and even went so far as to set the built time to 1, but no joy. *is confused*

posted on March 3rd, 2019, 12:25 am

(faction)_(ship)r(number) are ranked-up versions of the original ship; their stats would also need to see the same changes as the basic version, else the ship would lose all the changes once it ranked up.
(faction)_(ship)M are for ships that currently have their replaceweapon engaged; in the case of the Phalanx, the Hypercharged Magnan Emitter. You'll also need to change their stats, likewise, else the ship will lose the changes when turning on the special weapon.
You'd only need to change a total of 12 files in the Phalanx's case, as the other 62 files are all weapons (the Phalanx's weapons, specifically), in addition to the Phalanx's buildable limit cap and it's version of the veteran upgrade replaceweapon.

Weapon(number) are the weapons included on the ship (or station, for that matter); if you want the ship to have more weapons, you'll need to add more of those.
Weaponhardpoints(number) are just a list of hardpoints on the model that the weapon will fire from, but it'll only fire once regardless; adding more hardpoints just adds more visual variety, it won't make the ship fire more. It does need to list at least one hardpoint, however, else the weapon won't fire at all, so if and when you add more weapons, don't forget to give them hardpoints as well. I'd also recommend having the new weapons use different hardpoints than the others, else the weapons' visuals will often overlap.
The weapon(number)iconpos determines the location of the weapon's icon on the ship's overview image; weapons don't need these to function, but you may want to add these to new weapons if you want said ship overview to show the added weapons.

posted on March 3rd, 2019, 12:42 am

That makes more sense. Can I just copy-paste my changes into all the others, or is there something different in each one I need to keep an eye out for?

posted on March 3rd, 2019, 1:26 am

You'll want to keep an eye out for existing variations between files. The ranked up versions often have higher stats, higher level versions of their weapons, and other bonuses, many of which take the form of weapons or add utility "weapons" for displaying passive abilities. The M versions have whatever changes are applied by the special weapon, which, for the Phalanx, are just a couple weapon and special energy changes, in addition to changing which odf is upgraded to when the ship ranks up.

posted on March 3rd, 2019, 2:54 am

Fair point. I've made some changes/tweaks, and aside from basically insta-build and all my Phalanxes are called Phalanx battlecruiser, no change. I'm floundering in the dark. If I can figure this out, there's two or three other Fed ships I'd like to do this with; I figure the game engine can handle it!... but I still have to figure this out.

posted on March 3rd, 2019, 10:46 am

So when you say

Fair point. I've made some changes/tweaks, and aside from basically insta-build and all my Phalanxes are called Phalanx battlecruiser, no change. I'm floundering in the dark. If I can figure this out, there's two or three other Fed ships I'd like to do this with; I figure the game engine can handle it!... but I still have to figure this out.

you mean changing the unit's name and build time does work, but adding more weapons does not? Maybe you can copy the lines from the ODF that you changed to achieve the desired effecti into the forum, so we can have a closer look and not suggest something that you've already tried.

And I'm more confused than anything about adding additional weapons... thought I had it figured out, by just adding weapon hardpoints to each weapon, but no change.

I hope I don't get you wrong, but adding hardpoints to a weapon only gives that same weapon one more possible point to fire from. If you want more weapons, you need to add new lines like: ...

weaponXX = "fedW_sovereignY1"
weaponhardpointsXX = "hp31"

... with XX being one number higher than the last weapon. That will give you an additional phaser beam.
OR you tell the weapon to switch hard points after each shot (hardpointshift = 1) and tell the animation to play longer than the shot delay, then it will look like two beams while it's still the same weapon. But for that you don't really need more hardpoints, usually. I hope you'll be successful! Keep us updated.

posted on March 3rd, 2019, 2:30 pm

Thanks for the reply, Merough. Here's what I did, you'll see it below.

fleetcapfile = "all_cap_phalanx.odf"
weapon1 = "fedW_phalanx1"
weaponhardpoints1 = "hp04" "hp06" "hp10" "hp11"
weapon2 = "fedW_phalanx2"
weaponhardpoints2 = "hp02" "hp05" "hp07"
weapon3 = "fedW_phalanx2"
weaponhardpoints3 = "hp03" "hp08" "hp09"
weapon4 = "fedW_phalanx3"
weaponhardpoints4 = "hp01" "hp12" "hp13"
weapon5 = "fed_advmagnan"
weaponhardpoints5 = "root"

Basically took several of the HP## from hardpoint1 and spread them out among the others. Am I at least on the right track?

EDIT: I should add in that this is just from the fed_phalanx.obf file. but the changes are the same in all 12 files I edited.

posted on March 4th, 2019, 4:24 am

I needed to have a look at the original file and then it made sense: (I never play that Avatar, so I don't know anything about the Phalanx class)

"fedW_phalanx1" is a phaser
"fedW_phalanx2" is a pulse, of which the ship has 2, so it always fires 2 at once
"fedW_phalanx3" is the Magnan phaser
"fed_advmagnan" is a replacement weapon

The phaser can be fired from these points: "hp04" "hp05" "hp06" "hp07" "hp08" "hp09" "hp10" "hp11" "hp12" "hp13"

So what you did, is taking possible emitters away from the phaser and giving them to the pulses and Magnan phaser.
You did not add another weapon. You need to add a new line, so that the entry you sent looks like this:

fleetcapfile = "all_cap_phalanx.odf"
weapon1 = "fedW_phalanx1"
weaponhardpoints1 = "hp04" "hp05" "hp06" "hp07" "hp08"
weapon2 = "fedW_phalanx2"
weaponhardpoints2 = "hp02"
weapon3 = "fedW_phalanx2"
weaponhardpoints3 = "hp03"
weapon4 = "fedW_phalanx3"
weaponhardpoints4 = "hp01"
weapon5 = "fed_advmagnan"
weaponhardpoints5 = "root"
weapon6 = "fedW_phalanx1"
weaponhardpoints6 = "hp09" "hp10" "hp11" "hp12" "hp13"

This weapon6 is your additional phaser beam. OPTIONALLY you can also name it weapon2 for neatness of having the two phasers underneath each other, but then all the other weapons need to move down a slot, so that "fed_advmagnan" ends up being weapon6. I started modding weapon ODFs long before using FleetOps, and its amount of files in comparison to the old A2 can be overwhelming. So modding the old A2 was much simpler, but modding FO is much more fun! Keep at it

posted on March 4th, 2019, 10:55 pm

SWEET. YES. That did it!

An additional question - the pulse phasers, is it possible to have them fire more than one salvo, as it were? Looking into the pulse phaser cannon weapon data for the Phalanx (fedW_phalanx2.odf) I don't see anything jump out at me. And setting the shotDelay value to like... 0.1 would most likely make it a GATLING cannon, which I don't want... yet.

EDIT: I've tweaked the Phalanx to my satisfaction; my next project was the Descent class, but all it does is crash when I try to spawn it from SFC bldg. Here's my code below. I did notice in several other files that the weaponry code was... quite different somehow?

weapon1 = "fedW_descent1"
weaponhardpoints1 = "hp01" "hp02" "hp03"
weapon2 = "fedW_descent2"
weaponhardpoints2 = "hp09"
weapon3 = "fedW_descent2"
weaponhardpoints3 = "hp10"
weapon4 = "fed_shieldreset"
weaponhardpoints4 = "root"
weapon5 = "passive_mlshields"
weaponhardpoints5 = "root"
weapon6 = "fedW_descent1"
weaponhardpoints6 = "hp04" "hp05" "hp06"
weapon7 = fedW_descent1"
weaponhardpoints7 = "hp07" "hp08"

posted on March 5th, 2019, 6:10 am

It crashes because the line: ...

weapon7 = fedW_descent1"

... is missing a quotation mark in front of the f. Searching for missing quotation marks should be your first step when you encounter a crash like that.
So you figured out the shot delay? I mean the Descent's torpedo gives a good example of how to do that: ...

shotcycleresettime = 8.25
shotdelay0 = 0.25
shotdelay1 = 0.25
shotdelay2 = 0.25
shotdelay3 = 8.25

posted on March 6th, 2019, 12:01 am

It crashes because the line: ...

weapon7 = fedW_descent1"

... is missing a quotation mark in front of the f. Searching for missing quotation marks should be your first step when you encounter a crash like that.

AH! Rookie mistake. Fixed it. Is there a way to... delay the firing of a given weapon by a percentage of a second?