Cloaking Ships: A Mini Tutorial

[Zalausai]

Cloaking Ships Tutorial
In the ship maker, there are little buttons in the upper left side of the screen labeled "EDIT" and "EFF".

Input these commands into the "EDIT" button for each section. (with the section selected)

Trigger on action 1: Key pressed , (comma) self
Trigger off action 1: Key pressed , (period) self

Mode: Fade


Input these commands for the "EFF" button for each section.

Effect type: Alpha fade (This will set the effect to fade away using the following parameters)

Alpha: 1
It starts displaying at this level of alpha (Overwrites the alpha parameter in the "EDIT" tab) Sections normally start at 1, which is fully visible.

Fade In: 30
At 30 fps, this section will go from visible to invisible in 1 second.

Fade Out: 30
At 30 fps, the section will go from invisible to visible in 1 second.

Delays
The section will stay in it's current state for a number of frames equal to this number. (30 = 1 second)
Hi Delay: Time before going back invisible after fading back in.
Lo Delay: Time before going back to visible after fading away.


With these settings, the sections (s) will fade out when the comma key (,) is pressed. It will take 1 second to fully disappear, then you can press period to lock them in into the invisible state. Press comma again to have it return to normal. Don't forget to press period once again to lock it back into the visible mode.

Note: You cannot make the core fade, ever. No matter what, the core will always be visible.
Don't use the same button for the on and off commands. The section will ignore you and just keep fading back and forth.

Written for the newbs.
Some terms have been put in layman's terms in an attempt to prevent confusion.
Tested in: bsf_meta2_fighterbay and sm-metacustom-fighterbay

[R0ni]

Nice to see you making tutorials here. Do do more if you can / have time / motivation. ( ^ u^)

[calvin1211]

Put 'Trigger on action 1' to the keypress (I use /), and set 'Trigger off action 1' as 'Fade reach low limit (self)' and 'Trigger off action 2' as 'Fade reach high limit (self)', and set the high limit to 1 and low limit to 0 in the EFF tab. That way, you can toggle with just one keypress.

[Necrontyr1998]

I assume that the same process can work with the trigger being a 'weapon acquire target' so the ship can still cloak in AI mode.

[Anna]

It can, but that can be... sketchy. The "weapon acquire target" trigger can be a bit janky.

[CryoSleep]

Hey Z, you do the Articulated Arms tutorial since i'm not a good Teacher and i'm bad at Explaining Shit.

[Zalausai]

I will try. That one will take some time. It will be done in stock sw sections for clarity, since they are big and bland, they won't interfere with screenshots of important parts.

[Zalausai]

Put 'Trigger on action 1' to the keypress (I use /), and set 'Trigger off action 1' as 'Fade reach low limit (self)' and 'Trigger off action 2' as 'Fade reach high limit (self)', and set the high limit to 1 and low limit to 0 in the EFF tab. That way, you can toggle with just one keypress.

I tested this theory in shipmaker. Sadly, it did not stop fading back and forth for me. However, pressing the key again pauses the fading. Although it does not stop fading back and forth, the keys work this way. This experiment was labeled a partial success.

I assume that the same process can work with the trigger being a 'weapon acquire target' so the ship can still cloak in AI mode.

I tested this with a series of experiments. All used a weapon with 10 turning, 1000 range, and 180 degree firing arc. (To function as a ship detector in combat)

Experiment 1:
Trigger On 1: Weapon Acquire Target
Trigger On 2: Weapon Lost Target
Trigger Off 1: Fade reach lo limit (s)
Trigger Off 2: Fade reach hi limit (s)
Set up with a trigger line with the weapon. Trigger 1 on and trigger 2 on.

Result: The ship faded out when targeting an enemy, but quickly faded back and stayed that way. This experiment was labeled a failure.


Experiment 2:
Trigger On 1: Weapon Acquire Target
Trigger On 2: Weapon Lost Target
Trigger Off 1: Frames Elapsed (s), 30 (same as fade duration)
Trigger Off 2: Frames Elapsed (s), 30 (same as fade duration)
Set up with a trigger line with the weapon. Trigger 1 on and trigger 2 on.

Result: The ship faded out when targeting an enemy, but quickly faded back and stayed that way. Just as before. This experiment was also labeled a failure.

I regretfully must say that I do not know how to program a ship to maintain cloaking when under AI control.

With these experiments, I think someone with the authority to do so should check the shipmaker and verify that the reach hi/lo limit trigger functions are coded correctly. They do not seem to be functioning correctly.

[calvin1211]

Huh. I'm not sure why it didn't work, since that's what the SOC ships used.

[Anna]

The "Weapon lost target" trigger is unreliable, and in some instances just plain doesn't work, to my knowledge. The "Weapon acquired target" trigger is equally unreliable, as it acquires targets repeatedly, thus setting off the trigger again and again and making it break. I'll work on a way to make this work, if I have the time. I am fairly certain there is a way to do it, as I've seen ships which had transformations upon acquiring a target. I believe it relies on having a delay to automatically revert back after a certain amount of time, thus making the transformation/cloak have a set time-limit rather than deactivating once the target is lost.

Keep up your own tests. Triggers are finicky as hell, and I can't promise I'll be able to figure it out myself. Also I just bought Bioshock Infinite so that may... keep me distracted.