Shipmaking Q&A

Slayer0019 · Post by **Slayer0019** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 4:25 am

And then find a way to explain the false hestias' deflectors targeting the peitho, and then explaining why the death of the peitho causes the death of the hestias.
It is good in theory, bad in execution.

warhammer651 · Post by **warhammer651** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:40 am

*de-lurks*
long story short: i put the tesla weapon on a ship, but i don't see a thing when it fires. help

*re-lurks*

Chiiro · Post by **Chiiro** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:41 am

warhammer651 wrote:long story short: i put the tesla weapon on a ship, but i don't see a thing when it fires. help

*re-lurks*

IIRC Teslas don't work if you're not running with surfaces on.

warhammer651 · Post by **warhammer651** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:43 am

crap......
hopefully my new PC is fixed soon

AnnihilatorX · Post by **AnnihilatorX** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 5:45 am

BizzarreCoyote wrote:
Hypothetical Wisdom wrote:Is there a way to make your own formations, like the Peitho Deflector formation seen in level 8?
Well, you could build a ship that looks like a group of ships...

I tried the idea of cloning a mini fighter into many to mimic a formation, it doesn't look nice because of the way they move and turn as a whole and the exhaust effect on the core.

Hypothetical Wisdom · Post by **Hypothetical Wisdom** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 6:18 am

Ok, I have to get this out there. I'm really sorry about the slight off-topicness, Arcalane.

I think the main reason for the 'deluge' of questions and the mass of frustration about the manual, ____ing tooltips, and Kaelis's post, is this:

The 'manual' for the shipmaker said that it was not intended to be a full manual, and if you wanted in depth information, go to the forums

Well, I read that, and I came to the forums, like I'm sure that many other people also did. Now I'm here, and, contrary to what the manual had me beleive, there is very little in the way of in-depth information as of yet, and everyone here mostly points to two places for more information: Kaelis's post, and, the manual (the same maunual that directed them to the forums).

I'm not trying to point fingers, but I hope this offers an explanation as to why nobady seems satisfied with the response "read the manual."

And just so this post has a reason to be in here...

What is Blending Mode, and how are Normal and Additive Blending modes different?

Post by **Arcalane** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 6:27 am

Hypothetical Wisdom wrote:Is there a way to make your own formations, like the Peitho Deflector formation seen in level 8?

Unfortunately not. The FormRank setting (if it still exists) defines the ship's position in the standard block formation (lower ships go towards the front) but it's not really the same.

##

What is Blending Mode, and how are Normal and Additive Blending modes different?

Blend Mode defines how the sprite is drawn. Normal mode is just that. Nothing special. Additive mode means that it adds it's colours on top of anything underneath it, giving a semi-transparent effect (similar to alpha/transparency) or a mix of colours.

CmdrTimo · Post by **CmdrTimo** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 7:13 am

Venator wrote:
CmdrTimo wrote:Nah, I tried and the game gave me an error. I'm starting to think that it is a custom section, one whole section rotating.
Nope, they're separate. It is possible to have a circle with multiple sections, you just have to parent them properly.

How so?
And is there a way to make the section coordinate differ from where the sprite itself is? This way when the section is rotating, it appears that it is traveling in a circle instead of staying in one place.

Post by **Kaelis** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 7:38 am

No, there is no way to do that. Instead, make a rotating section (possibly make it invisible), then parent the section you want to 'travel in a circle' to it.

But rotsections are bugged anyway, so...

ODST · Post by **ODST** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:12 am

I'm having issues with the ship deployer. I've seen that your supposed to type in the name of the ship, and then add .shp to the end of the name. Are you sure that's it? Because when I go into sandbox and try to use the ship deployer, it gives me an "Invalid Ship File!" error. It also throws one of those white error windows.
_____________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: User Defined 0
for object ShipDeployer:

Error in code at line 13:
obj.speed = l_special2

at position 14: Cannot assign to the variable

Post by **Kaelis** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:56 am

What kind of ship is it? Can you post an sb4?

Kruxynus · Post by **Kruxynus** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:03 am

EDIT: Nevermind.

ODST · Post by **ODST** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:05 am

It's a simple, 3 section, 1 weapon, 1 hidden thrusterEx ship. All custom sprites, except for the thruster. Small drone type thing.

As for getting the .sb4, it's proving a bit difficult. My computer will not show .sb4 files, even though I can load them on shipmaker and sandbox them succesfully.

Post by **Kaelis** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:36 am

Whats the path youve used for your ship file? It needs to be relative to the directory BattleshipsForever.exe is in.

Hypothetical Wisdom · Post by **Hypothetical Wisdom** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:37 am

Ok, two things:

1: I tried putting a section with additive blending mode into a little ship of mine, and I got this error message:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Other Event: User Defined 3
for object ShipSection:

Error in code at line 12:
(tr_ontype != 0 || tr_offtype != 0) ) then

at position 5: Unknown variable tr_ontype

The tr_ontype thing makes me think that it might have something to do with triggers. I have a driver and turretsection in my ship, is that related to the problem? I wouldn't think so, because the ship worked fine until I added the additive section. Go figure.

2: I have a turretsection in my ship, and apparently the turretsection has a 360-degree range, even though the driver weapon doesn't. How can I fix this?