It's model 370 and there's nothing in the tris file to prevent the text being drawn.
I posted the save game here if it helps
Unfortunately, I'm not seeing the same issue here with Gernot's model. :S
Unfortunately, I'm not seeing the same issue here with Gernot's model. :S
Well, that's a bit odd. Not worth losing any sleep over though...
Using Ctrl-F6 to revert to the basic model gets it working properly. I'll try an older version of 370 and see if that helps.
In the meantime:
WINGMEN!!!
Wow Andy, that's a comprehensive update! Will enjoy playing around with it!
When you say you've added the 'option' for the system import/export market display, does that mean I have to activate it manually somewhere?
Cheers!
When you say you've added the 'option' for the system import/export market display, does that mean I have to activate it manually somewhere?
Cheers!
Me again!
The missiles turn and leave for their target quite nicely, although they "jump" from their mounting when launched to a point below my ship before heading off. The "exhaust smoke" seems to be out of position too.
The versions text document refers to "Enhanced the system information view to display how many starports and orbital stations are present.". Where is this? I can't see it!
I like the option to "Hide Trade Info Without Stations" but when the screen is first entered, the commodity headings ie. major exports, minor exports etc. are still visible. Is this intentional?
I'm having great fun with the wingmen option in the developer console and there's lots of info to display, which I find quite interesting. However it seems to me many of the other features such as adding equipment to ships are covered by Buffet, and in a nice GUI as well. Or am I missing something? :O
The missiles turn and leave for their target quite nicely, although they "jump" from their mounting when launched to a point below my ship before heading off. The "exhaust smoke" seems to be out of position too.
The versions text document refers to "Enhanced the system information view to display how many starports and orbital stations are present.". Where is this? I can't see it!
I like the option to "Hide Trade Info Without Stations" but when the screen is first entered, the commodity headings ie. major exports, minor exports etc. are still visible. Is this intentional?
I'm having great fun with the wingmen option in the developer console and there's lots of info to display, which I find quite interesting. However it seems to me many of the other features such as adding equipment to ships are covered by Buffet, and in a nice GUI as well. Or am I missing something? :O
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Yes, I've made it optional as it's the historical behaviour in both Frontier games and not a bug as such. Most people probably won't mind seeing that a lightly populated system has some level of imports/exports, even if it doesn't support trading to space ships with star ports/stations. Wrapping in an option keeps everyone happy.
To disable the data being shown for systems that don't support trading, you'll need to open ffed3daj.cfg in notepad - scroll down to the [PATCHES] section and update the option "HideTradeInfoWithoutStations=1". (New or updated options/settings are mentioned in the ffed3daj_versions.txt file each build)
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Cheers polaris & sorry about that...
I've uploaded a fixed v1.15 beta2 here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vzv0ntpihcrujeq/FFED3DAJ_v1.15 beta2.zip?dl=0
Sorry Steve, I missed our message x-post and hadn't noticed your reply 'til now.
It's normal that missiles eject quite far from the ship - I haven't changed that, and I'd assume they're starting outside of the collision sphere that surrounds the ship to reduce the chance of flying through/colliding with it. The smoke has always been misplaced. JJ attempted to fix it IIRC. But missiles also decelerate and then the smoke can overtake them and appear out of position. I'd like to change missiles so that they don't start to decelerate near to the target (they use autopilot code) but haven't got a solution yet.
Station counts are in the main 2D system screen, after the major bodies count. (F7) - just a thought - if you have your own separate translations language subfolder, you'll need to update "strings_6796.dat" with that from the "EN" folder.
Empty Trading screen is to be expected as I've not tried to hide/disable the button per-system. When navigating the sector view, it doesn't have the information to know that the system has no stations/star-ports, it only calculates that extra data once you click on one of the info views.
Console is primarily for me at this point I guess, it doesn't replace BUFFET for most things and certainly not for players who don't want to start dabbling with values in memory or... typing!
I'm not sure if BUFFET lets you create/edit other ships, I'm not that familiar with it, but the console does.
It'll also let me select any destination system and hyperspace to it to test something, it'll show me which planet/station/star-port objects are in use.
It's a starting point to being able to query/update stuff. e.g. I want to look at the mission entry for the final thargoid storyline and see what gets updated when you refuse or accept to help them. I know where the data is held in memory, but not the format. Hopefully I'll be able to examine this a little more easily now, perhaps leveraging scripts rather than pausing the game and manually debugging to view memory locations.
I'll probably also look to expand the key/joystick bindings to include script names too so that they can be triggered outside of the console screen, and expand on the opportunity for automatic script triggers on more of the game events.
btw I should have suggested - if you want to zip up your install and pm a share to me, I'll take a look and see if I can't figure out why those adverts are broken.
I've uploaded a fixed v1.15 beta2 here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vzv0ntpihcrujeq/FFED3DAJ_v1.15 beta2.zip?dl=0
Me again!
The missiles turn and leave for their target quite nicely, although they "jump" from their mounting when launched to a point below my ship before heading off. The "exhaust smoke" seems to be out of position too.
The versions text document refers to "Enhanced the system information view to display how many starports and orbital stations are present.". Where is this? I can't see it!
I like the option to "Hide Trade Info Without Stations" but when the screen is first entered, the commodity headings ie. major exports, minor exports etc. are still visible. Is this intentional?
I'm having great fun with the wingmen option in the developer console and there's lots of info to display, which I find quite interesting. However it seems to me many of the other features such as adding equipment to ships are covered by Buffet, and in a nice GUI as well. Or am I missing something? :O
Sorry Steve, I missed our message x-post and hadn't noticed your reply 'til now.
It's normal that missiles eject quite far from the ship - I haven't changed that, and I'd assume they're starting outside of the collision sphere that surrounds the ship to reduce the chance of flying through/colliding with it. The smoke has always been misplaced. JJ attempted to fix it IIRC. But missiles also decelerate and then the smoke can overtake them and appear out of position. I'd like to change missiles so that they don't start to decelerate near to the target (they use autopilot code) but haven't got a solution yet.
Station counts are in the main 2D system screen, after the major bodies count. (F7) - just a thought - if you have your own separate translations language subfolder, you'll need to update "strings_6796.dat" with that from the "EN" folder.
Empty Trading screen is to be expected as I've not tried to hide/disable the button per-system. When navigating the sector view, it doesn't have the information to know that the system has no stations/star-ports, it only calculates that extra data once you click on one of the info views.
Console is primarily for me at this point I guess, it doesn't replace BUFFET for most things and certainly not for players who don't want to start dabbling with values in memory or... typing!
I'm not sure if BUFFET lets you create/edit other ships, I'm not that familiar with it, but the console does.
It'll also let me select any destination system and hyperspace to it to test something, it'll show me which planet/station/star-port objects are in use.
It's a starting point to being able to query/update stuff. e.g. I want to look at the mission entry for the final thargoid storyline and see what gets updated when you refuse or accept to help them. I know where the data is held in memory, but not the format. Hopefully I'll be able to examine this a little more easily now, perhaps leveraging scripts rather than pausing the game and manually debugging to view memory locations.
I'm thinking it'd make sense that if you intend to help them, and dock back in the shuttle then you'd get a trip back 'home' and not have the unexpected scenario where you need to have enough military fuel to make your own way back - that always seemed wrong!
I'll probably also look to expand the key/joystick bindings to include script names too so that they can be triggered outside of the console screen, and expand on the opportunity for automatic script triggers on more of the game events.
btw I should have suggested - if you want to zip up your install and pm a share to me, I'll take a look and see if I can't figure out why those adverts are broken.
Fair enough. I'd never been in the habit of switching to the exterior view and watching the missiles launch before; I was just doing it this time to observe the missile turn and head towards the target. Somewhere in a dusty corner of my brain I do have a recollection of the issues you describe above in earlier incarnations of the game.
Ah, yes. That was it. I've updated strings_6796 and it's all working nicely.
Ok, I flagged it up, just in case.
Excellent. I certainly wasn't saying that the console is useless but I was a bit concerned that you might be devoting time and effort to creating something which is already available. Buffet allows you to edit and delete ships but AFAIK can't create them. I'm sure I'll be using the console a great deal as I like to experiment with the game!
Crumbs, I just looked at my FFED3DAJ install and it's 1.75GB! I can strip it down quite a bit by removing the videos but it'll still be a fair old size. I'll sort something out over the weekend and pm you when it's ready. Thanks!
Crumbs, I just looked at my FFED3DAJ install and it's 1.75GB! I can strip it down quite a bit by removing the videos but it'll still be a fair old size. I'll sort something out over the weekend and pm you when it's ready. Thanks!
Just the models folder and config file would be enough actually if that helps
PM with you now [up]
Cheers Steve.
I've taken a look and it's model #86 that's triggered the issue. Gernot's been a little creative by using the model that represents the star port to add animated cars to drive around the roads (although I'm not sold on one being a batmobile!)
Normally the object is just a collection of the station and other city area sub-models, and doesn't draw anything for itself - so I wouldn't have expected this to be replaced! He'd have to be careful repeating this idea with other star port locations as some of them do draw raw shapes that would have to be included otherwise they'd simply go missing.
Anyway, with that model being there as an external .X model it throws off some of the (admittedly horrible) code that's trying to decide when to hide or display text-labels/shapes on ships/stations/adverts. It's a bit of an historic mess to be honest, I'm not sure if the tris.ini got added quite late during FFED3D, or if most modellers ignored the nodrawtext value as there was hard-coding to switch labels off on models regardless.
The problem is made worse because the FFED3D wrapper doesn't process models in the same order as the assembly code does, so it's not always clear what the parent object is for a text character and if it should be displayed. I made some improvements in the earlier builds but it's never been 100%
I think I have a work around for the new model, but testing is showing the up the existing problems with some of the space stations anyway. For example: the docking bays want to hide their station-id and chevrons (///) on doors, but this then leads to hiding other text on the wheel stations due to the order the models are processed.
I guess I know the FFE code a lot better now though to look at hooking the assembly routines to try tracking the objects hierarchy more accurately and if that pans out, to simplify the text-suppression code. So that's the next task. No promises of an ETA this side of Christmas though!
The command parser, although quite primitive still should allow the creation of some QOL enhancements - more so once I add binding scripts to keys/controller-buttons as well as exposing game events. I had hoped that the script that launches after a hyperspace might allow the dumping of all radioactives for example - but it turns out it happens a bit too early before free-flight so I'll be revisiting that. Other ideas - target the ship that last sent a message, target the closet enemy etc...
That last one really needs to be able to use temporary variables to iterate through the object list. I had a couple of hours free this afternoon that I was originally thinking to try out ED but honestly it was more appealing to implement some value storage/retrieval instead! (Next target is to allow mapping the scripts)
I've taken a look and it's model #86 that's triggered the issue. Gernot's been a little creative by using the model that represents the star port to add animated cars to drive around the roads (although I'm not sold on one being a batmobile!)
Normally the object is just a collection of the station and other city area sub-models, and doesn't draw anything for itself - so I wouldn't have expected this to be replaced! He'd have to be careful repeating this idea with other star port locations as some of them do draw raw shapes that would have to be included otherwise they'd simply go missing.
Anyway, with that model being there as an external .X model it throws off some of the (admittedly horrible) code that's trying to decide when to hide or display text-labels/shapes on ships/stations/adverts. It's a bit of an historic mess to be honest, I'm not sure if the tris.ini got added quite late during FFED3D, or if most modellers ignored the nodrawtext value as there was hard-coding to switch labels off on models regardless.
The problem is made worse because the FFED3D wrapper doesn't process models in the same order as the assembly code does, so it's not always clear what the parent object is for a text character and if it should be displayed. I made some improvements in the earlier builds but it's never been 100%
I think I have a work around for the new model, but testing is showing the up the existing problems with some of the space stations anyway. For example: the docking bays want to hide their station-id and chevrons (///) on doors, but this then leads to hiding other text on the wheel stations due to the order the models are processed.
I guess I know the FFE code a lot better now though to look at hooking the assembly routines to try tracking the objects hierarchy more accurately and if that pans out, to simplify the text-suppression code. So that's the next task. No promises of an ETA this side of Christmas though!
No worries, it's a helper for me and I see it as a companion to BUFFET. It can do most of what that does, I think except for taking over an AI ship, but the GUI is always going to be faster & easier for the general stuff and there's no sense re-inventing the wheel. Being able to directly query values on objects or in the main game values structure is going to be much easier to work with than using Visual Studio's debugger, never mind updating them too.
The command parser, although quite primitive still should allow the creation of some QOL enhancements - more so once I add binding scripts to keys/controller-buttons as well as exposing game events. I had hoped that the script that launches after a hyperspace might allow the dumping of all radioactives for example - but it turns out it happens a bit too early before free-flight so I'll be revisiting that. Other ideas - target the ship that last sent a message, target the closet enemy etc...
That last one really needs to be able to use temporary variables to iterate through the object list. I had a couple of hours free this afternoon that I was originally thinking to try out ED but honestly it was more appealing to implement some value storage/retrieval instead! (Next target is to allow mapping the scripts)
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Nice one Andy! I disabled model 86 - as a temporary measure - and I've got my adverts back! Gernot put a batmobile in? Yeah, that sounds like the sort of thing he'd do! [haha]
Well, Christmas is pretty close now. Whenever you get round to it is great.
Hah, you're as bad as me! Shall I take ED out for a spin today? Nah, let's load up FFED3DAJ instead!
Ah, but doing that is causing problems rendering other starports, such as Fort Donalds in the Achernar system, as you mentioned in your last post.
Given the choice, I've reactivated model 86 - which means no adverts on some buildings but spaceports drawn correctly
Ah, but doing that is causing problems rendering other starports, such as Fort Donalds in the Achernar system, as you mentioned in your last post.
Given the choice, I've reactivated model 86 - which means no adverts on some buildings but spaceports drawn correctly
Fort Donalds is a space station though - model #74. If there are "problems" (bit vague there Steve!) then they would be unrelated to model 86 being loaded or not.
What problem are you seeing there?
("list stations" in the console will show you the all the station/starport types present in the system)
Sorry, that was a bit vague, wasn't it! [noob]
What I'm seeing occasionally, with model 74, is stuff like this...
in the external view, becomes this...
...when I switch to the forward view, but yawing left and right brings the arms back. At first I thought disabling model #86 prevented this, but now I realise it doesn't, which makes sense if model #74 is entirely separate.
I've attached a zip of the save game to this post if you want to see if it happens to you! If it doesn't, then I have to assume some of my models are borked
Ooooooh! That's freaky!
The main body of the space station has grown large enough to gobble up the four 'arms' that stick out from it. If you look closely you can see the 'spikes' on them, but it's obvious what's wrong if you toggle model modes with F6.
Errr. Ok, I've never seen that happen before.
It's definitely not the model - must be some sort of issue with the "scale" value - at a guess. Will need to dig into this!
And yeah, if you do see weird stuff - a screenshot and a save is always a big help if it's reproducible! [haha]
The main body of the space station has grown large enough to gobble up the four 'arms' that stick out from it. If you look closely you can see the 'spikes' on them, but it's obvious what's wrong if you toggle model modes with F6.
Errr. Ok, I've never seen that happen before.
It's definitely not the model - must be some sort of issue with the "scale" value - at a guess. Will need to dig into this!
And yeah, if you do see weird stuff - a screenshot and a save is always a big help if it's reproducible! [haha]
Ooooooh! That's freaky!
Just a thought...
That station seems to be made up of models 74, 77 & 238. I've made sure the skins in each of those folders are the same size (512x512 to save memory). It looks like that may have fixed the problem, albeit after hyperspacing out of the system and back in before approaching Aachen Town.
Anyway, I'm too tired to think any more [woah]
It's a bug.
It looks like a side-effect of an earlier fudge to map station model 74 to 77 to save memory on loading both, as they are identical .x models/textures.
There was then a check that incorrectly decided that it was a sub-model and since 1.12 caused it to become subject to sub-model scaling.
So, oops. Slaps head. etc. etc. But that's the risk sometimes adding new functionality - and needing to test hasn't affected anything else. "It's still a beta" lol - for good reasons, so - good find!
Thanks for the save + the screenshot - it'll be fixed in the next build
It looks like a side-effect of an earlier fudge to map station model 74 to 77 to save memory on loading both, as they are identical .x models/textures.
There was then a check that incorrectly decided that it was a sub-model and since 1.12 caused it to become subject to sub-model scaling.
So, oops. Slaps head. etc. etc. But that's the risk sometimes adding new functionality - and needing to test hasn't affected anything else. "It's still a beta" lol - for good reasons, so - good find!
Thanks for the save + the screenshot - it'll be fixed in the next build
OMG OMG OMG!
We have script mods, peeps! Yippee!
Is it a dev console, or a trainer, or a scripthook, or a 'ship computer'?
Yes! Yes it is!
Merry Christmas everyone! With any luck the weather outside will be frightful enough we can all spend a week indoors huddled over our spangly new all-signing "astrogation console" (in Dark Wheel jargon)..
Wings! Bring mandem to run 'tings! Shake up any party!
No more being a sitting duck in anything larger than Sidey (esp. when playing Aniso's)!
No more solo anything - military missions (form up a paramilitary wing!), bounty hunting (deputise the dogwork)... you can spawn a bunch of Mk1 / Mk2 Vipers, rename their ship ID's to "Police" (via BUFFET for now), they'll be automatically re-skinned as police ships and voila, you're chief of your own private L.E.A! Right on commander!
Also love the new options for showing 'unexplored system' data.. leaving it at default of "1" for now, since this seems the best compromise between maintaining some mystique (if everything were already mapped there'd be little incentive to explore), versus basic logic (we can already remotely map major bodies in distant systems - you'd think hyperspace-capable probes would've catalogued the whole galaxy by now). So there's some gaming capital in leaving unexplored systems 'dark', but equally if you're in one, your sensor-laden starship should be able to scan it within a short while of arriving..
Absolute star turn of an update, this.. a real quantum leap, the new possibilities are already enough to set your head spinning.. just simple QOL enhancements, those little ideas that only come to mind whilst playing.. "wouldn't it be cool if..?" - now there's a good chance you can script it!
Fuel transfers / breakdown recovery services could be scripted - the "Broadcast message to all in range" options could finally fulfill their supposed functions.. attracting salvation, or just scavengers..
How about a range of "instant action" scenarios - spawn a hostile battleship with a fighter escort; the player's spawned into a police wing, and a countdown timer gives 5 mins to clear the first wave..
..upon destruction of the last enemy within the time limit, a score is awarded and a second wave spawned - harder ships, with less time.. etc.
Likewise, "escort the freighter / VIP", fighting off pirates, police, assassins, paparazzi etc.
Defend the base / orbital station!
"Survival mode" - everyone hates the player!
If fuel / cargo transfers could be somehow be hacked together then maybe we could crudely 'simulate' ship-to-ship docking, thus finally creating useful roles for interplanetary craft - lifters / shuttles / transporters could load / unload goods or maybe even passengers to and from Lynx Bulk Carriers and Long Range Cruisers...
Then there's transporting bulk from asteroid fields, salvage and rescue, floating graveyards strewn with debris, etc..
..or just script up some in-system passenger / cargo runs.. treat it as a 'comms side-channel' for 'off-books work', autogenerating randomised work in-system..
..or else, treat it as an Uber / Lyft-type app that runs on your ship computer, or whatever Elite's equivalent of an iFruit is..
..you could even make a new start point with only a lifter / shuttle, and an in-system job script!
You could run 'fighter escort' scripts alongside, and pay for their services when you have no firepower of your own..
Similarly, maybe you could corral help from other wings upon arrival in a rough system.
Or how about a script that causes an intercepting pirate wing to offer protection, before attacking you anyway if you refuse it..?
You could try implementing Reidquat's clan system from Dark Wheel lore, wrought with internecine conflicts..
Or just combat zones, generally. Big, epic battles, that's Elite's forte..
NPC traders, miners, security patrols, and other ambient events (police chases, cargo convoys, remote pirate hide-outs, thargoid incursions, police and / or pirate vs thargoid skirmishes etc. etc.) - just about any pretext you can imagine for spawning ships and making 'em do pew pew..
All this stuff's within reach now..
Looking forward, there just has to be some way to assign or script basic AI fire control to turrets.. NPC's as well as player ships! Presumably this is hard to implement natively (JJ et al must've looked into it) but the turrets are there, the AI's there.. there's gotta be a way to bridge 'em somehow..?
(spawn immobile 'surrogate' NPC's far out at the extremity of a system and re-route their targetting routines to a wingman's turret in their group, or something? Totally grasping at straws here..)
Likewise, would be a major breakthrough being able to assign a crew member to automatically take the pilot seat when you man the turrets.. whereas traditionally, taking up a turret means neglecting vital pitch and yaw manoeuvering, and thus getting rapidly shredded unless tanked up with shields - and even that's of little help in Aniso's mod.. yet turreting's great fun! If only it didn't mean leaving the pilot seat empty whilst under fire!
It's one of the game's last remaining unfulfilled features - something that implicitly should've been there from the start.. along with full thruster mapping and everything else fixed since..
Sorry, text-wall, i'm hyped tho.. Endless possibilities..
Only a few small issues thus far:
• the console's clipped when aspectfix is enabled
• and i can't get the wing menu to show via the grave key!
• also can't seem to get ship markers to display in the 3D system view anymore..
This is an awesome update tho, bringing space-sim sandboxing into the 21st century, a la scripthook for GTAV! Thank you so much Andy - you're so understated, but this is a huge amount of work in a short spread of time, you're on fire bro!
(i can't stop re-reading the readme, dribbling at the possibilities)
We have script mods, peeps! Yippee!
Is it a dev console, or a trainer, or a scripthook, or a 'ship computer'?
Yes! Yes it is!
Merry Christmas everyone! With any luck the weather outside will be frightful enough we can all spend a week indoors huddled over our spangly new all-signing "astrogation console" (in Dark Wheel jargon)..
Wings! Bring mandem to run 'tings! Shake up any party!
No more being a sitting duck in anything larger than Sidey (esp. when playing Aniso's)!
No more solo anything - military missions (form up a paramilitary wing!), bounty hunting (deputise the dogwork)... you can spawn a bunch of Mk1 / Mk2 Vipers, rename their ship ID's to "Police" (via BUFFET for now), they'll be automatically re-skinned as police ships and voila, you're chief of your own private L.E.A! Right on commander!
Also love the new options for showing 'unexplored system' data.. leaving it at default of "1" for now, since this seems the best compromise between maintaining some mystique (if everything were already mapped there'd be little incentive to explore), versus basic logic (we can already remotely map major bodies in distant systems - you'd think hyperspace-capable probes would've catalogued the whole galaxy by now). So there's some gaming capital in leaving unexplored systems 'dark', but equally if you're in one, your sensor-laden starship should be able to scan it within a short while of arriving..
Absolute star turn of an update, this.. a real quantum leap, the new possibilities are already enough to set your head spinning.. just simple QOL enhancements, those little ideas that only come to mind whilst playing.. "wouldn't it be cool if..?" - now there's a good chance you can script it!
Fuel transfers / breakdown recovery services could be scripted - the "Broadcast message to all in range" options could finally fulfill their supposed functions.. attracting salvation, or just scavengers..
How about a range of "instant action" scenarios - spawn a hostile battleship with a fighter escort; the player's spawned into a police wing, and a countdown timer gives 5 mins to clear the first wave..
..upon destruction of the last enemy within the time limit, a score is awarded and a second wave spawned - harder ships, with less time.. etc.
Likewise, "escort the freighter / VIP", fighting off pirates, police, assassins, paparazzi etc.
Defend the base / orbital station!
"Survival mode" - everyone hates the player!
If fuel / cargo transfers could be somehow be hacked together then maybe we could crudely 'simulate' ship-to-ship docking, thus finally creating useful roles for interplanetary craft - lifters / shuttles / transporters could load / unload goods or maybe even passengers to and from Lynx Bulk Carriers and Long Range Cruisers...
Then there's transporting bulk from asteroid fields, salvage and rescue, floating graveyards strewn with debris, etc..
..or just script up some in-system passenger / cargo runs.. treat it as a 'comms side-channel' for 'off-books work', autogenerating randomised work in-system..
..or else, treat it as an Uber / Lyft-type app that runs on your ship computer, or whatever Elite's equivalent of an iFruit is..
..you could even make a new start point with only a lifter / shuttle, and an in-system job script!
You could run 'fighter escort' scripts alongside, and pay for their services when you have no firepower of your own..
Similarly, maybe you could corral help from other wings upon arrival in a rough system.
Or how about a script that causes an intercepting pirate wing to offer protection, before attacking you anyway if you refuse it..?
You could try implementing Reidquat's clan system from Dark Wheel lore, wrought with internecine conflicts..
Or just combat zones, generally. Big, epic battles, that's Elite's forte..
NPC traders, miners, security patrols, and other ambient events (police chases, cargo convoys, remote pirate hide-outs, thargoid incursions, police and / or pirate vs thargoid skirmishes etc. etc.) - just about any pretext you can imagine for spawning ships and making 'em do pew pew..
All this stuff's within reach now..
Looking forward, there just has to be some way to assign or script basic AI fire control to turrets.. NPC's as well as player ships! Presumably this is hard to implement natively (JJ et al must've looked into it) but the turrets are there, the AI's there.. there's gotta be a way to bridge 'em somehow..?
(spawn immobile 'surrogate' NPC's far out at the extremity of a system and re-route their targetting routines to a wingman's turret in their group, or something? Totally grasping at straws here..)
Likewise, would be a major breakthrough being able to assign a crew member to automatically take the pilot seat when you man the turrets.. whereas traditionally, taking up a turret means neglecting vital pitch and yaw manoeuvering, and thus getting rapidly shredded unless tanked up with shields - and even that's of little help in Aniso's mod.. yet turreting's great fun! If only it didn't mean leaving the pilot seat empty whilst under fire!
It's one of the game's last remaining unfulfilled features - something that implicitly should've been there from the start.. along with full thruster mapping and everything else fixed since..
Sorry, text-wall, i'm hyped tho.. Endless possibilities..
Only a few small issues thus far:
• the console's clipped when aspectfix is enabled
• and i can't get the wing menu to show via the grave key!
• also can't seem to get ship markers to display in the 3D system view anymore..
This is an awesome update tho, bringing space-sim sandboxing into the 21st century, a la scripthook for GTAV! Thank you so much Andy - you're so understated, but this is a huge amount of work in a short spread of time, you're on fire bro!
(i can't stop re-reading the readme, dribbling at the possibilities)
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I don't want to be The Grinch that stole Christmas... but the 'scripting' functionality is rudimentary at this point. I don't know much about the GTAV scripthooks, but there must be obvious functionality to be able to create UI's and behaviour ... expectations need to be dialed back - this is still a ye olde MSDOS game which comes with no such niceties.
You don't need BUFFET - you can create a script, e.g. wm_viper.txt in the scripts folder:
In the console, you can then type "!wm_viper" to spawn a Police viper wingman.
If you want a mk2, you could create another script that spawns "wingman 34" instead of 30.
When you close the console, you should now see that there is a wingman list/menu on the left of the screen - pressing ` will switch between names/options.
(up/down arrow in the console to bring up previous commands & return key to repeat them)
Btw. the ship name/id must be kept to no more than 6 characters for wingmen ships (plus a null/zero character terminator) - the maximum for objects generally is 19 plus the zero character but I'm using the normally unused space to store the wingman's forename, surname, current command and target id.
To explain the script - the spawning of the wingman is tested by the IF statement - it returns 0 (false) if failed, 1 (true) if successful.
When it succeeds, it sets the 6 characters of the name to 'Police'. Each character is set to a hex value in this example, 0x50 = 'P' but the decimal value 80 could also have been used instead. (Tip: the values can be found with the character map utilitity that comes with Windows, click on a character and it'll display the value in the bottom left of the window, e.g. 'P' will say "U+0050 Latin Capital P", U+0050 = 0x50 hex.)
In just before Santa - here's a v1.15 beta 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwi0dlji5gxtbbb/FFED3DAJ_v1.15 beta3.zip?dl=1
The TV issue that Steve reported should be fixed as I'm now tracking FFE's model hierarchies more accurately and know what a text character belongs to and whether to display it or not. Also I've fixed the issue with the accidental scaling being applied to the central area of the 'hammer' orbital city stations.
Your reported issue with clipping the console when using "aspectfix" display mode is also fixed hopefully. (thanks for reporting)
The console/scripts now have basic storing of values in variables and I've also added mapping scripts to joystick buttons.
So - Merry Christmas / Happy holidays everyone!
You don't need BUFFET - you can create a script, e.g. wm_viper.txt in the scripts folder:
Code:
logging off
if wingman 30
#set name to Police
objpoke c byte 0x124 0x50
objpoke c byte 0x125 0x6f
objpoke c byte 0x126 0x6c
objpoke c byte 0x127 0x69
objpoke c byte 0x128 0x63
objpoke c byte 0x129 0x65
objpoke c byte 0x12a 0x0
else
print Unable to spawn new wingman
endifIf you want a mk2, you could create another script that spawns "wingman 34" instead of 30.
When you close the console, you should now see that there is a wingman list/menu on the left of the screen - pressing ` will switch between names/options.
(up/down arrow in the console to bring up previous commands & return key to repeat them)
Btw. the ship name/id must be kept to no more than 6 characters for wingmen ships (plus a null/zero character terminator) - the maximum for objects generally is 19 plus the zero character but I'm using the normally unused space to store the wingman's forename, surname, current command and target id.
To explain the script - the spawning of the wingman is tested by the IF statement - it returns 0 (false) if failed, 1 (true) if successful.
When it succeeds, it sets the 6 characters of the name to 'Police'. Each character is set to a hex value in this example, 0x50 = 'P' but the decimal value 80 could also have been used instead. (Tip: the values can be found with the character map utilitity that comes with Windows, click on a character and it'll display the value in the bottom left of the window, e.g. 'P' will say "U+0050 Latin Capital P", U+0050 = 0x50 hex.)
In just before Santa - here's a v1.15 beta 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwi0dlji5gxtbbb/FFED3DAJ_v1.15 beta3.zip?dl=1
The TV issue that Steve reported should be fixed as I'm now tracking FFE's model hierarchies more accurately and know what a text character belongs to and whether to display it or not. Also I've fixed the issue with the accidental scaling being applied to the central area of the 'hammer' orbital city stations.
Your reported issue with clipping the console when using "aspectfix" display mode is also fixed hopefully. (thanks for reporting)
The console/scripts now have basic storing of values in variables and I've also added mapping scripts to joystick buttons.
So - Merry Christmas / Happy holidays everyone!
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