Help a new player and ship creator

[Prmetime]

Hello all. I have recently started playing Battleships Forever and I decided to design my first ship because I was bored. I was very surprised when the ship creator came up to find that there was no documentation on how to build a ship nor any documentation on what the weapons do. I could choose some weapons based on my experience from playing the campaign but I really don't know what they do. I'm also really not sure how to change the original center section to a different type. Finally, I was definitely surprised that I was stuck using the shapes that were provided and that I couldn't rotate them the way I wanted. Perhaps this is because I am missing a file or I don't know where to look so if you can help me figure out what I am supposed to be doing I would greatly appreciate it.

[Anna]

Press F1 while in the ship maker. It will bring up a list of commands and the like.

[Prmetime]

I saw that list of commands and I did create a ship including playing with the weapons placement and weapons arcs. Looking at the B5 Forever thread I guess I need to worry less about overlap of the various ship panels to get the look that I want.

I'm still not sure what to do about the structure (how thinks link together) nor am I sure how to get information on the weapons (damage, rof, special abilities) but I guess I shall just have to experiment.

[Stormcaller]

First off, there's a weapons & modules guide in the BF General forum. That should help you out somewhat. I think somewhere in here there's also a download that has ships set up to be identical except each one has a different weapon attached, so that you can see what each one does in practice.

Past that, F1 in the ship builder gives you an idea of the hotkeys, which also ought to give you some idea as to what you can do.

Beyond that, let's see:

You can right click on any section, weapon, or module to bring up a menu. This menu changes based on what the object is, and whether it's flashing blue (meaning it's selected) or red (meaning your mouse pointer is hovering over it). I believe you can also reach the same menu via Edit at the top of the screen, which is not to be confused with the Edit button to the left. Note that if you want to get at a section that's hidden by something else, there's a hotkey for doing so- I think you hold down Shift+Ctrl and left click until the one you want is flashing blue. Note that in this situation there'll probably be another section flashing red, so use the Edit menu at the top of the screen rather than right clicking (as right clicking would affect the red part rather than the blue one you want).

Parenting is those white lines. This is an important concept in that you want things to parent logically- it doesn't make sense to shoot the wing on the left side of the ship and have armor plate on the right side explode. Parenting defaults to whatever's currently selected prior to you cloning or clicking on a part from the left side menus- whatever was flashing blue becomes the parent of the new item. You can change this by hovering your mouse over whatever you want the new parent to be (so that it flashes red) and right clicking, then choosing Set Parent (or whatever- same general idea) from the drop-down menu. Note that If A has B set as its parent, you cannot set B to have A as its parent. You can't be your own grandfather, and neither can sections. First you'd need to set A to have a different section (say, C) as its parent, and then you could have B parented to A. Note this works further up the tree, too- If it's A -> B -> C -> D, you can't go back and set A so that D is its parent. It'd make a big loop, and loops are bad.

Now, let's get into messing with sections. First off, let's deal with rotation, flipping, and scaling. The Edit button on the left menu allows you to do some rotation, and the Edit menu for blue flashing sections allows you to flip things horizontally or vertically, but there's also hotkeys for this. J and L allow you to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise, and holding down Shift when you press J or L will allow you to flip things vertically or horizontally. Further, you can scale things on both axes. K is, if I remember right, shrinking, while I is growing. They default to one axis, and holding down Shift allows you to affect the other axis. Note that these axes are fixed, even when rotating- spin a part 90º and then try to flip it on the horizontal axis, and you'll note it didn't quite work the way you expected.

For another area of concern, let's look at the Command menu, which if I'm not mistaken has just one option: Mirror Ship. This does exactly that- it mirrors the ship along the screen's X axis, using the center line of the ship's core to figure out where that axis is. If the same part already exists in the same place as where it's trying to put a new one, it'll skip that, but realize that a few pixels to the left, right, up, or down will not count as 'the same place.' Further, if you have altered the depth of parts (1 being closest to the screen, and each part occupying its own depth) you'll notice mirrored ones don't always carry through- your might have a part set at depth 7, but its mirrored version is set at depth 138. This can make mirrored parts hard to find, since they're hidden under other parts, but you should be able to locate them by using the Shift+Ctrl+left click method. Adjust their depth in the Edit menu at the top of the screen to get them back in the proper order.

Any other questions?

[Zeybrin]

Just remember. . .don't use all of the same part facing in all of the same direction. . .

Aegis should be used with moderation. . .

And dick shaped ships are a no no.

[Prmetime]

Stormcaller,

There are some things that you have told me that weren't clear in the instructions so that should help me a lot. I didn't realize that you could shrink parts or rotate them the way you have mentioned. I shall have to play with that as I can hopefully make things look a little better.

I have come up with a reasonable ship based off of Star Fleet Battles but the art of the ship leaves much to be desired. Hopefully I can use what you have mentioned to make it look much cleaner. Thank you for your help.

Zeybrin,
I'll try to remember that.......

[Prmetime]

I have been playing with all the new things you have taught me though I don't see any edit listing on any menu so I have a lot to learn. I was wondering how you change the colors or the ship parts. Can you do all of them at once? Do I have to do it only as I build the ship piece by piece?
I have gone to the menu that says change color but when I click on that option nothing happens. Am I doing something wrong?

I just upgraded to version 0.88 and my custom designed ships don't show up as available for the new encounter scenario. Does it work properly yet?

[ArcaneDude]

As for the new Ship Maker, the older ones are Betas, this one IS working properly.

And yes, you can do the colors all at once:
4 sets are available, go to BSF/options to customize them.

To change the entire ship's colour, right click the core, and press C. This will cycle you trough colour sets. To change them individually, right click a section. A menu appears, with an option "colour type". Press it, and you'll see the option "custom colour". By selecting this, you get one of those paint like colour selection panels. Be creative!


Hope I helped!

[Prmetime]

Thank you ArcaneDude. I will do what I can.